Sinister Designs
by Scrawling Maelstrom
Summary: The face of the enemy is finally revealed. Friends of Humanity has a militant arm and two worrisome names appear on the roster: Larry Trask, and an enigmatic Mr. Sinister....
1. Prologue

**Editor's Note:** You have no idea how good it feels to have new people read my stuff and enjoy it. _Thank you._ :) 

The truth is, and I'm sure a lot of you know this already, those stories I've posted up until now have been out since late 2003. This is my first new piece, which I've had writer's block on for the past 6 months. The updates came fast and furious with my other stuff, because it was already written, but this one is going to be updated slower, as I'm still writing it.

And, as you might be able to tell, this comes literally on the heels of Isolation. There's going to be some particularly brutal bits of cruelty in it, which is why it's got an R rating.

-----------------------------------------

**Sinister Designs : Prologue**

By the time the jet finally landed at the institute, sometime early afternoon, both Rosa and Ororo had nodded off. Kurt didn't have the heart to wake either of them. Logan, however, had no such sentimental compunctions.

"C'mon, kiddos," he said, lightly shaking Rosa, then Ororo, on the shoulder. "Rise an' shine."

Ororo woke with a bit of a start. "How long've I been out?"

"Most of the trip, liebling," Kurt confessed as he stood up. "That gentle downpour must have taken a lot out of you. Do you need help?"

She shook her head as she unbuckled herself from the seat. "I should be all right in a moment. How's Rosa?"

Kurt glanced back for a second. "A little groggy."

He felt a dribble of warmth run from his nose. Ororo noticed it at the same time. Kurt pinched his nose and bowed his head, muttering a few choice curses in German.

"You must have stood up too fast," Ororo said.

"It's been doing this off and on since last night. The altitude changes have not been helping." He offered her his free hand. "I think it will pass soon."

"I hope so. I'd hate to think we'll have to use the nitrate sticks on you."

"Oh, please, no silver sticks. I hate those things. They burn so."

Logan looked up from where he was unhooking Rosa from her seat. "You should've seen him packing his nose with gauze earlier. That red sure shows up against his face."

Despite her weakness, Ororo stood and moved to see Rosa. Such a tiny little thing. She must have stood under five feet. For the life of her, Ororo couldn't tell if she was less than ten years old, or just petite and malnourished.

Logan wrinkled his nose momentarily. "Oh-ohh. Get ready."

Rosa started to tremble, looking at her body with a panicked expression. She was changing again. Logan set his mouth in a grim line and shook his head slightly. No wonder she was living alone, if she had this little control over her ability.

"It be all right," Kurt told her in Castilian. "Let it come. No one hate you. Let it come."

The disturbing transformation finished in a few seconds. It seemed to speed up after Kurt's words. Rosa, hunched over a little bit, looked back up at Kurt. Kurt just nodded.

"Can you speak like this?" he asked her. She shook her head. "It be all right. The teacher be happy see you. He know how you look. Other children be happy see you. They know how you look."

She nodded, still hunched over in that wary posture. Ororo took her hand, then gently pulled her to the back of the jet, where the ramp was lowering. Kurt followed behind, still pinching his errant, bloody nose. Logan brought up the rear, their salvaged computer tower clutched in his hands as he watched all in front for signs of weakness. As expected, Professor Xavier was waiting at the base of the ramp, Scott at his side.

The only thing that betrayed Scott's emotions was the slight drop of his jaw, a motion so subtle it could have been mistaken for a simple intake of breath. Ororo wondered whether she or Rosa was the object of his attention. She hadn't seen herself in the mirror for a while, but she knew she couldn't look good. The professor, however, just smiled pleasantly as they descended, his eyes on his new ward. He extended his hand to her and spoke in perfect, comfortable Spanish. Rosa slowly started to move toward him, looking from Xavier to Ororo. Ororo smiled in turn and let go of her hand.

Xavier held Rosa's hands in his, quietly speaking to her. She nodded occasionally. Ororo glanced back at Kurt, who was watching the scene intently. Maybe she'd ask him about the conversation later. Xavier looked up at Scott and nodded, then looked back at the rest of them.

"Ororo, Kurt, can you make it to medlab?" he asked softly.

Kurt and Ororo nodded. For a moment, Kurt let go of his nose, but he could feel the blood continue to dribble, so he went back to pinching it again. To Kurt's surprise, Scott bent over and gently gathered Rosa in his arms. The tender action looked so… ill-fitting… on the stern man. He had never seen such a gesture from him before.

As they exited the hanger, they found the entire student body waiting for them in the hallway. Most had a set of clothes in their arms, alternately held in front or tucked under the arm. The exceptions were the older students, specifically Piotr, Rogue, and Bobby. The reasons, if not immediately apparent, became obvious as Artie fearlessly came up and held his pair of jeans against Rosa.

"We look really close," he said. "Maybe these'll fit."

"She's not gonna wear _boys_ underwear, Artie!" Jubilee objected.

"I was talkin' about the jeans!" he objected right back. "I don't have any of those lacy _girl_ things!"

Logan could smell the fear and revulsion coming off a few of the kids. Not surprisingly, one of them was Judy, who'd also been scared out of her wits at Kurt's arrival. But they were all holding it in this time. Good for them.

"Miss Munroe, what happened?" Jaideep asked, looking at the open hole in Ororo's uniform. "Are you okay?"

"I just need some rest," she told him. "And before you ask, Kurt just has to take care of his nosebleed. We'll be all right."

The plethora of students and teachers made their way down to the medlab. Somewhere along the way the computer tower got passed to Piotr, and a hushed conversation took place between he, Logan, and Kitty. Kitty squeezed her way up to the front, taking pains _not_ to phase through the crowd, until she reached the professor.

"Professor, is Rosa gonna be okay, too?" she asked. "I don't want to leave, but…."

"But you want at that hard drive," Scott finished. "You've got the whole electronics lab at your disposal, Kate. Go to town. I just hope you can get something."

"I do too." She smiled up at Rosa and patted her bristly arm. "Hasta la Vista."

Rosa waved hesitantly as Kitty wove back through the multitude. She and Piotr ducked down another corridor and out of sight.

"Does she speak English at all?" one of the students asked.

"No, but she'll learn very fast," Xavier replied. "Just to warn you, she can't speak at all in this form."

"She can stay up in our room," Jubilee volunteered. "We've got the space. Right, guys?"

She looked at her roommates. All nodded and spoke assent, except Judy, who looked a bit nervous. Charles translated for Rosa. Others spoke. A hubbub of conversation sprang up.

"Did you coordinate this?" Kurt asked softly. "The clothing?"

Scott shook his head. "Once they found out about Rosa, everyone spontaneously decided to do it. We were as surprised as you were when they lined up with a set of clothes each." He looked back at Ororo and Logan and motioned with his head for them to draw near. "I want to keep you up-to-date on a few things. We got a call from Hank an hour ago. He said that he and Isidro would be staying at wherever they are for another day or two. So far so good, it seems."

"They _are_ going to put Isidro under some sort of protection, aren't they?" Ororo asked.

"The way Hank spoke, it was like they didn't want to chance _anything_ happening to Isidro. He's their only witness. He's going to be protected round the clock. Matter of fact, they've called in Nathan and Moira as well."

"Nathan?" Ororo paused for a second in thought. "Nathaniel Essex? And Moira MacTaggart?"

Scott nodded. "All the way from the British Isles."

"These people are important, yes?" Kurt asked.

"Only two of the top geneticists in the world," Scott replied. "You put Hank in there, and they've got all the talent in one spot."

"They called in geneticists for this?" Logan asked suspiciously. "I thought they were looking at hardware, not wetware."

"Same here. So far as I know, only Hank has any idea what to make of the electronics for these amp suits. I guess they're in there to look at the neural gel."

Logan snorted and glared elsewhere. "More likely some bureaucrat wanted to bounce more 'mutant problem' ideas off them. Hank sniffed out any moles yet?"

"No, for once everything seems to be on the level. I'm afraid to jinx it." Scott paused. "Logan, what you told me about the new suit in the jet. You're sure there's no metal in it?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I can only think of one reason why someone would go through that much trouble for a mutant-hunting weapon."

The four of them looked at each other, and one name went through their heads.

"Magneto?" Ororo asked.

"They're gunning for him," Scott answered.

"He's the number one terrorist on the slate, of _course_ they're going after him," Logan snarled. "Especially after that stunt at Alkali."

"But we're the only ones that know what he did in Cerebro," Scott reminded him. "Even if someone else found out, that suit _must_ have taken more than a year to put in production. They've been preparing this since _way _before Liberty Island. Since before the public knew about him at all. They probably designed it side-by-side with their other suits."

"I'm almost afraid to know what Kätzchen will find on that computer," Kurt mumbled.

"I'm more afraid that she won't be able to find a thing." He looked at Kurt directly. "How long has that nosebleed gone on?"

"The pressure changes started it again," he said.

"Don't worry, we've got nitrate sticks in the medlab."

Kurt unsuccessfully tried to stifle his groan.


	2. Fun and Games

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 1**

Ororo had no idea how long she slept once she made it to her own room. It could have been a few hours, it could have been an entire day. All she knew was that the afternoon sunlight greeted her eyes when next she opened them. She lay in bed for a few minutes longer, not quite willing to leave, and turned away from the light. As she did, she saw that there was something on the table a few feet away from her. She blinked a few times, forcing her eyes to focus. It was a loaded tray. Not one of the heavy plastic ones for everyday use, but a silver tray, with a silver teapot, china cup, white-wrapped sandwich, and a few red roses arranged casually in front of it all.

She sighed as she slowly rolled out of bed, a smile on her lips. There was only one person who would go to that much trouble for her.

She stood gingerly at first, expecting that searing "you shouldn't be out of bed" fire to lance into her once more. But now the pain in her right side had dulled to something much more manageable. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she could straighten up without her stoic mask. In the mirror she could see the mark, a dull, reddish-brown, vaguely regular circle, similar to a healing burn. Considering one was able to see daylight through it a few days ago, it was still hard to believe it had mended so well. There might not even be a permanent scar when it was done.

She padded softly over to the table and poured what she expected to be water or cool tea out of the teapot. To her pleasant surprise, it was coffee, and it was still warm enough to steam. This wasn't one of their insulated containers. When did Kurt bring this up? Had he been checking in on her every fifteen minutes? Or did he just have extraordinarily good timing?

_You're going to make me feel guilty with all this attention, Kurt_, she thought as she unwrapped the sandwich. _Not that I don't appreciate it….._

She hadn't been hungry when she woke up, but at the first bite of food, she found herself nothing short of ravenous. She devoured the sandwich in short order, and bolted her coffee after that. After finishing off the small pot, she glanced down at the roses.

_That's it, Ororo. When you think about eating the roses, it's time to raid the kitchen. Goddess, I haven't been this hungry in years. One sandwich should have been enough, and I've had enough coffee to have me doing handsprings all day…._

She tossed on some clothing and headed out. The halls were all clear, and she heard little of the usual institute activity downstairs. Classes must have ended. A quick glance out of a nearby window confirmed her suspicions: on a beautiful, warm day like this, most of the students were outside. She'd probably get to the kitchen without interruption. But as it turned out, she wasn't so much interrupted on the way as she was sidetracked by the voices in the common room.

"Sorry, guys, but I don't _have_ any blue," a student (was it John?) said. "I want red."

Kurt must have snorted very loudly for Ororo to hear him at this distance. "You are _not_ sorry. That's another Draw Four Wildcard, isn't it?"

"Uh… yeah, it is."

John's words were immediately followed by hoots and cheers. Curious, Ororo looked into the room. Kurt was sitting at the table with six other students, playing a card game. Judging by the size of the drawing pile, there were at least two or three decks combined into one. Also, judging by Kurt's expression, and the large pile of Uno cards gathering at his spot, he wasn't doing very well. He sat at the table, chin in his hand, and sighed as John drew four more cards from the main deck and added them to Kurt's heap. At that point, one of the players facing the doorway saw Ororo.

"Miss Munroe! Are you doing okay?" she asked.

The rest of the table turned to see her. As Kurt turned the rest of the way, Ororo saw that one of his eyes was completely red where the whites should have been. She winced.

"Better than Mr. Wagner, it seems," she answered as she walked in. She pointed to her left eye. "How did that happen?"

"Oh, this?" he asked back. He looked down with a slightly embarrassed grin. "It's nothing. Sometimes this happens when I have a bloody nose. Some blood vessels burst in my eye. It looks worse than it is."

"It certainly looks awful. It doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No, not at all. I think my hand hurts worse than my eye."

He pointed to the pile of cards in front of him. Some of the kids snickered. Ororo gestured for them to keep playing while she stood near Kurt. Play resumed, as loud and boisterous as ever. One thing about Uno that Ororo had figured out early on; it was invariably accompanied by swearing, name calling, shouting, and smart-ass comments. It was impossible to play quietly.

"Aren't you supposed to pick those cards up and look at them at some point?" Ororo asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Kurt threw his arms open wide. "Why bother? I haven't played a single card this entire game! All I do is get stuck with them!"

Adding to his words, play skipped to John again, who played a red Draw Two card. More shouts. John drew two more cards for Kurt's growing pile.

Kurt pointed to the deck, John, and the entire table. "Look at this! Why am I here? All I do is eat cards!"

"Speaking of eating, thank you for the tray," Ororo said softly. "I have no idea how you kept the coffee warm, but I appreciate it."

"I would refill it every so often," he answered, just as soft. "When it cooled, I made another small pot and gave what was there to Kätzchen. I have never seen a girl go through so much coffee."

Play had reversed direction. Now Anna, to Kurt's left, held up another Draw Two card, the second of two cards in her hand.

"I'm really, really sorry, Mr. Wagner," she giggled. "And Uno, everybody."

"Oh, why break with tradition?" Kurt shouted. "I haven't played yet! Why start now?"

And so Kurt was given two more cards, and play once again passed him by.

"What's Kitty doing that she's drinking so much coffee?" Ororo asked.

"She's still in the lab," Kurt said. "She's like a little pit bull when it comes to computers. As long as you have slept, she has been awake, working on that hard drive."

"How long has that been?"

"A good 30 hours. Herr Professor was to stop it, but she begged him to give her more time. I think he only lets her do this because it's so important to find something on that computer."

So she'd been out a full day. That explained why she was so damned hungry.

"Has Hank come back yet?" she asked.

"He called early this morning. He should be back by dinner tonight, he said." A memory lit his eyes. "That's right, you were sleeping when we got her call! Do you remember Beth and Toshiro Hidoshi in Virginia?"

"How could I forget? Something about saving each other's life will do that."

"She had the baby yesterday. Seven pounds, nine ounces, a little boy, healthy as you could want. They were talking about naming him after Logan." Kurt grinned. "You should have seen his face. I don't think _he_ knew what to think about that."

"Um… Mr. Wagner…?" Anna asked. She held up her final card. "I'm out."

"And you went out with another card to make me draw, yes?" he asked back.

She nodded, her lips twisting in a frantic, and futile, attempt not to smile. It was another Draw 4 Wild card. Kurt bowed his head in acquiescence and gestured for more cards to come his way.

"I have no trouble with other games like poker, but I have no luck with this one," he sighed, watching four more cards find their way onto the heap. "My first hand, and I never got to play."

The students started counting the points in their hands, laying the cards face up on the table as they figured. Another student brought out the pen and paper to keep track. Kurt gathered his cards into a neat stack and started to fan them out for the first time. Ororo looked over his shoulder and bit her lip.

He calmly looked up over his cards at the rest of the table. "And the scoring? Just to make sure, it is twenty points for letter cards and fifty points for wildcards? And the game ends at 500?"

"Yeah," John said. "How many you got?"

In response, Kurt dropped his cards on the table, which prompted shouts of disbelief. He must have been holding over half of the wild cards in the deck. At a quick glance, he had over 600 points sitting in his hand. Then he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and raised his arms in triumph.

"I win."

There was an explosion of laughter. Someone, probably several someones, shouted that he did _not_ win, that you were supposed to have the _fewest_ points, not the most. None of it seemed to matter to Kurt. He stood up, eyes still closed and arms still raised, as if acknowledging a standing ovation.

"I have ended the game in record time," he spoke loudly over the objections. "The Amazing Nightcrawler has gained more points in one hand than anyone in history." He pushed his chair back in with his tail as he bowed. "And as it would not be sporting of me to beat you all so soundly again, I will now leave you to wallow in defeat."

He was so _good_ with the kids, Ororo thought. He fit with them so well. She, Scott, and Charles were mentors at all times. Hank was friendly, but he was an outsider, and his vocabulary and intellect made him unapproachable. Logan was like a notorious uncle who taught you how to play poker, drink whisky, and shoot a pistol when your parents weren't looking. Kurt…. Kurt was a friend. Maybe it was all business in his gym class, but once outside that teacher/student barrier fell at the first opportunity. He would play with them, and they would play back. He performed, and they watched.

After all, would Scott have even been invited to play cards with them? Let alone accepted the offer?

He and Ororo moved away from the table as one as the kids shuffled the cards for another round. She couldn't help but stare at Kurt's reddened eye. She knew the blood would likely be reabsorbed by the end of the week, but it was going to look horrendous until then.

"I don't think that sandwich was enough for you, liebling," he said softly as they left the room. "But I wasn't sure what else you'd be in the mood for, and I didn't want to have soup and salad growing old while you slept."

"It gave me the energy to get down here without fainting," she replied. "The silver tea set and roses were a wonderful touch."

"What kind of man would I be to neglect such things?"

From literally out of nowhere, Kitty ran into them both. Or, rather, ran through them. Ororo's stomach did uncomfortable flip-flops. I wasn't painful to have Kitty phase through you, but it was very disconcerting.

The second she realized what she had done, Kitty spun around, panting. "Guys, I finally got in. I got it working. You guys gotta get down there. I'll tell the professor."

Before either Kurt or Ororo could ask for clarification, she was gone again, dashing through the nearest wall. They glanced at each other. The electronics lab. Without saying a word, they both headed downstairs.

TBC...


	3. Patterns of Hate

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 2**

Every member of the X-men gathered in the lab within minutes. Equipment, wires, boards, and unidentifiable "stuff" littered one of the tables. A half-filled coffeepot sat on an active burner some feet away, along with a spill-proof mug and the debris of several meals. For once, the printer stood idle and devoid of printout. Kitty would always make printouts before she was done. Whatever she discovered on the hard drives they brought back had her so excited that she was forgoing her usual procedure.

She sat at the computer table, activating certain windows as she talked. Above her on the wall, a larger projection of that same screen made sure everyone had a chance to see.

"Okay, okay, this is the first thing I found," she said rapidly. "The email account. You're not gonna believe all this stuff."

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_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Sent: Friday, April 2, 2004 7:02 AM_

_To: command ops_

_Subject: Chain of command_

_Spindler;_

_Romor has it that Larry has been removed from the command structure, but he's denying the whole thing. Is this true? My guys are getting antsy. You know how Larry gets; he makes Stryker look like an altar boy. Have you sene the flame he's slinging around? We have to have somthing in writing to get him to lay off. _

_---- Original Message ----_

From: command ops 

_Sent: Monday, April 5, 2004 2:34 PM_

_To: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Subject: RE: Chain of command_

_We're still looking into it. It doesn't look good for him, right now. The panel's leaning towards punting Larry off the tree. _

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 7:22 AM_

_To: command ops_

_Subject: RE: Chain of command_

_Spindler, what's the decision, here? Can Larry be trusted or not? Everyone needs to know ASAP._

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: command ops_

_Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 10:43 AM_

_To: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Subject: RE: Chain of command_

_Matt,_

_Spread this down the pipe. Larry is OUT of the loop. End of discussion. And in case he gives you grief, shove this in his face:_

_To all field operatives:_

_After a thorough review of the Westchester Disaster, it has been decided that Harold Trask is no longer to be trusted in the command chain for combat operations. Though his zeal is commendable, his drive to eliminate the enemy has resulted in his making rash decisions. Henceforth, he is to focus entirely on research and development._

_Derek Spindler_

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Logan gave something between a snort and a chuckle. "Real professional, there. Whoever this Larry is, sounds like he's a real primadonna."

Professor Xavier's voice was stern to the point of anger. "Harold Trask is an old associate of William Stryker, but while William stayed in the government, Harold went into the private sector. I haven't even heard his name in years."

"I looked this guy up, and he's like the Howard Hughes of the defense world," Kitty said quickly, turning around in her seat. "He does all this great R and D, he's got more money than God, but, like, no one ever sees him. He owns huge shares of Lockheed, Boeing, ADF, and God knows what else, and he's always doing contracting, but it's all done electronically. He just never sees _anyone_."

"Howard Hughes?" Piotr asked.

"Rich genius nutcase, did all this great airplane stuff in the 30s, went all hermit on the rest of the world before he died," Kitty explained. She barely took a breath between sentences, and her voice started to tremble. "Man, 'Westchester Disaster', you think it could be more obvious? He must have ordered that attack on us!" She spun again and called up another window. "Here's another one. This one is _so_ gonna piss you off."

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_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Angel_

_Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:32 AM_

_To: R&D Feedback_

_Subject: detector_

_you asked for us to say something and here it is this thing sux. It always nevr works right its always stoping and starting. We have hell ofa time catching any with it._

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Mr. Sinister_

_Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:54 PM_

_To: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Subject: RE: detector_

_Matthiew,_

_Neither Harold nor I can make adjustments to the equipment unless we know exactly what the problems are. Your partner's comments are not specific enough. Please clarify._

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 9:13 PM_

_To: Mr. Sinister_

_Subject: RE: detector_

_Mr. Sinister,_

_Please accept my opologies. This will be the last time I have Angelou give a status report. _

_1) __Tho the detector could pick up active use of the xgene, it could not detect passive use. This severely limits its potential to hunting down active targets, who ar much more likely to cause casualties than those caught by surprise._

_2) __Sometimes the detector will "stick". Example: when the control mutant was killed during active power use, it was still registered as active. This will waste a lot of time in the field, trying to hunt down a target that's already dead._

_3) __The "handheld" prototype is so fragile that I wouldn't trust it outside of the lab. It will not survive being dropped, let alone battle. Also, it tends to "drop out" often when compared with the mobile units._

_On the plus side, the emanations from Larry's Sentinels no longer interfere with the signals. In the future, we should be able to send them after targets and track them in real time, instead of programming in advance._

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Mr. Sinister_

_Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 1:54 PM_

_To: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Subject: RE: detector_

_Matthiew,_

_1) __Currently, there is no way to detect an inactive xgene short of a blood or DNA analysis. I am working to rectify this in the future._

_2) __This is an interesting problem. Did resetting the device work, or did it stay active for a longer time? It could be that the emanations from the target's gene persisted after its demise._

_3) __I realize that the handheld model is fragile. Future rebuilds will strengthen it. What percentage of dropouts were in evidence?_

_---- Original Message ----_

_From: Brodemier, Matthiew_

_Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 9:13 PM_

To: Mr. Sinister 

_Subject: RE: detector_

_Mr. Sinister,_

_For question 2, yes, resetting did fix the problem, but we can't keep rebooting after every shot. For question 3, it semed that the signals randomly dropped out half the time. _

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Kurt's mouth went dry as the words, and their horrible implications, sank in. He crossed himself three times. It was as if he was reading a communiqué from Dr. Mengele.

"Oh my Lord," Rogue whispered. "Oh my dear, sweet Lord."

"I mean, look at this!" Kitty screamed. "They killed someone to test this thing out, and they're talking like they blew a bulb! Someone fucking _died_!"

"You know who this 'Sinister' guy is, too, Chuck?" Logan asked quietly.

Charles shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the letter. "I have never heard this pen name before, not even in passing."

"This thing has FOH everywhere," Kitty went on, pointing to the hard drive in question. "Half the email goes _right_ through their domain. I salvaged enough to hunt these bastards down."

"Catherine, you've been working far too long already--" Charles started.

A tear trickled down her cheek. "No! No! I'm serious, here! I can do this! Right now! I-I've got the codes--!"

Now everyone else was attempting to calm her with their words. They spoke, they reached out, they tried to comfort. In response, her face reddened and her voice picked up in volume and pitch

_"We can't just let them do this!" _she screamed, her voice cracking._ "We can't let them use us like lab rats! We can't let them find a way to kill us in our beds and herd us into camps!"_

Kitty was so intelligent, so mature and responsible, that it was easy to forget she was not yet fourteen. As she began to break down, that youth suddenly became all too apparent. Scott covered the distance in two steps and grabbed her by her shoulders, with Piotr close behind.

"Kate, look at me," Scott ordered. "Do you honestly think we're just going to sit on this while you get some rest? Do you think I don't know my way around a recovered hard drive?" When she tried to protest, he shook her once and continued, "No arguments. You're exhausted. You get tired, you make mistakes. You did everything we couldn't do. Let someone else do the rest."

She grimaced and turned away, tears streaming from both eyes. "I'm sorry. I-I just... I shouldn't be... going to pieces like this...." In a faint whimper, "They took pictures."

Scott turned off the monitor with his elbow. Both overhead and primary screens went black. Piotr mumbled something in Russian as he gently took her from Scott. As Scott relinquished her, she curled up in Piotr's arms.

"They... they took pictures... a-and they... drew on them... like they were m-magazine ads...," she sobbed. "They made... word bubbles... and drew stuff... on someone's body...."

Piotr held the girl close as her strength dissolved, literally cradling her in his arms.

"I'll take her upstairs," Piotr said quietly.

Xavier motioned for Piotr to draw near. As he did so, the professor put his hand on the back of Kitty's head. Her sobs slowed, then stilled altogether. Soon she was asleep.

"I should never have let her push herself this hard," Xavier whispered. "If I had even an inkling of what images she would find there, I would never have allowed her to view them." He stroked her hair gently as he pulled his hand away. "Someone with a coarse and juvenile sense of humor 'adjusted' some of the research photographs with the electronic equivalent of a felt-tipped pen." He shook his head with a pained expression. "The callous nature of those pictures is disgusting on any level. It didn't help that one was a nude girl defaced with swastikas."

"Swastikas." Logan rubbed his eyes, as if tired. "Bet the guy I saw in the van did it. He had one tattooed onto the side of his head, couple more on his arms. Looked like a stereotypical skinhead."

"Why do we keep running into these kinds of people?" Kurt asked. "We find them in Virginia, we find them in those suits, we find them here…."

"Hatred works in cycles, Kurt," Xavier answered softly. "The same sort who would join the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan would also be attracted to hating mutants. It's all about defining yourself by your enemies."

"After all, it's 'safe' to hate us now," Bobby muttered, looking away. "We're a threat to human race, right? You say the 'n' word and you'll have people calling you a racist. Say the 'm' word and you're just some patriot worried about national security. They'll give you a medal or something."

"Or elect you to office," Rogue added.

Xavier rotated his chair to address the two teenagers directly. "Before you go too far down that path, I want you to consider something else. The government knows we're here. They've seen most of the people in this room, they know exactly where we live, and thanks to Stryker's files they have an excellent idea of what we can do. Have they come after us again, now that Stryker himself is gone?"

Bobby glanced at Logan. "They'd be kind of stupid to do something like that again."

Xavier's tone was a bit sharper. "But if they bombed this area from above, we would have no defense. None at all. They _could_ do that, Bobby. And if they considered us the kind of threat that Stryker and Trask obviously did, they _would_ have. Keep that in mind before you damn too many with that label."

Uncomfortable silence settled on the room while everyone looked at each other. No one was willing to speak. Scott sat down at the computer and flicked the monitor back into operation, then took pains to turn off the overhead screen.

"Everyone, I think you should consider clearing out," he said. "Because like it or not, someone has to pick through this hard drive. And that includes looking at those pictures for clues…."

"Are you certain you won't need any help, Scott?" Charles asked.

"I think two of us with nightmares will be enough," he muttered as he began his work.

"If nothing else, Katya needs to rest," Piotr said softly. "You will call me when you have more information, da?"

"Count on it, Colossus," Scott called over his shoulder.

At the mention of his code name, Piotr hesitated at the doorway. He looked back to Scott. "You think we are going into combat soon?"

"There's the possibility."

Piotr nodded. Steel flickered behind his dark eyes. Then he carried the girl out of the medlab. Scott glanced back over his right shoulder.

"Move it, everyone. Don't make it into an order."

Logan moved towards the door, albeit reluctantly. "Fuck it. I need a belt and a smoke before I go out and shred something."

Rogue and Bobby followed quickly, and the room began to empty. After a few seconds, Scott felt that he was alone. Except.... He glanced back to see Ororo still standing there, looking over his shoulder.

"I thought I told you--"

"Scott, this isn't something that's efficient to do solo, and you know it," she interrupted testily. "You need as many people to pick up visual clues as you can get."

"If I wanted help in something like this, I would have asked for Logan."

"He already gave the kids 'permission' to leave. And don't you go treating me like the kids, either. I spent a very long time in places that qualify as war zones. Are you familiar with the fine tradition of 'necklacing'? Where they put a tire filled with gas around your neck and light it?"

"That's a hell of a lot different from vivisection shots."

"It's still death for the sake of feeding egos. Only the excuses differ. Mobs claim 'justice' and scientists do it to 'better mankind'." She pulled up a seat, effectively cementing her position by his side. "You know this means they have a lab somewhere, and there's certain to be victims we'll need to rescue. And if we don't get to these damn things now, we'll have a hell of a time convincing ourselves to do it later. You know that."

Dammit. Yes, he knew that. And, yes, technically she was right: two sets of eyes were better than one. If they were going to find this abattoir before more "test subjects" died, he had to set his personal feelings aside and let her help. He had to remind himself that Storm didn't need his protection. That she wasn't Jean. Not by a longshot. He entered some simple commands to search for any picture-format formats on the drive.

"You know that Bobby was right, don't you?" Ororo asked softly as the search continued.

He stared straight ahead at the screen. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. He's too damn perceptive sometimes."

There weren't many of those files to look through. The bulk of them were in a folder with the disturbing label "fun stuf". Scott slowly inhaled and released a steadying breath before clicking on the first one. Both looked briefly away as the rudely-adjusted jpeg filled the screen.

"_Goddess_…," she hissed.


	4. At the Hotel

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 3**

By this time, Hank was used to spending a lot of time in hotel rooms; the bane and the benefit of his position. His services were increasingly in demand around the country, sometimes around the world, and that required extended stays. He was intimately familiar with every pillow mint mankind had to offer, every trial size of shampoo, aftershave, toothpaste, and other personal effects. At one point, during a dreary stay in New Jersey, he had even amused himself with soap bar measurements and foam analysis. The Jefferson-A Loews Hotel in Washington DC was so familiar to him that the staff knew him by name.

And yet, for all the familiarities, there were so many differences. This time he was sharing the suite with Isidro, and they were both the guests of the US Government, important witnesses to what was turning out to be a very, very complex breach of national security. This time there were plainclothes agents everywhere, infiltrating the staff right from upper management down to housekeeping. This time there were cameras in the rooms, and countersurveilance cars parked outside. The bath was the only place either man had any privacy at all. And the bath was where Hank was at the moment.

"You know she's due here any minute, right, Hank?" Isidro called.

Hank shut off the electric razor. "Yes, I know. But considering the rate at which my hair grows, I need to keep this in check before I turn into either a werewolf or a computer programmer."

Isidro laughed. "All the coders I know are clean-shaven."

There was a knock at the door, followed by familiar feminine voice. "Everyone decent in there?"

Hank stepped out of the bathroom as he called, "We're clothed, at least."

Agent Gloria Angstrom opened the door and walked into the room, closing the door behind her with accustomed swiftness. Though relatively young when lined up against her peers, she was pushing 40 that year, and the laugh lines were starting to show. Almost old enough, as she so put it, to be Isidro's mother. And counting her "apprenticeship" in high school, she had been in the FBI for as long as Isidro had been alive. She was dressed professionally, in a dark, street length skirt with coordinating blouse and blazer. Her gun was hidden in there somewhere.

She glanced at the drawn curtains and sighed. "You pay through the nose for the view, and you have to keep the place shut up tight as a drum. Sometimes I hate this business."

She moved to the table along with the two men. Hank held out her chair, and even offered to call up for coffee, which she declined.

'I've had enough coffee to negate three whitening treatments by now," she said, her polite smile beginning to fade.

"Oh-ohh...." Hank pushed her chair in gently. "This sounds like we may be extending our stay further, depending on what you found...."

She sighed. "I don't think there's much more information we can wring out of the two of you right now, especially on this subject, but I'm going to try anyway. Have you ever heard of something called 'Project Wideawake'?"

Hank took his seat. "Wasn't it one of Stryker's projects?" She nodded, and he continued, "It wasn't _the_ project, was it? The one that initiated this whole morass last year?"

She shook her head. "No, that was titled 'Cerebro II'. Stryker had a lot of pet projects floating around, it seems, and I have reason to believe some of them are so black they may actually qualify as earth-based singularities. But we can't get into his hard drive."

"You can't get in?" Hank repeated, disbelieving. "I don't understand. Did someone run some sort of virus on the machine between the 'visit' and your looting of Stryker's office?"

Her face twisted into something between a grimace and an ironic grin. "There's plenty who claim Xavier's people framed the good colonel for the entire Cerebro II incident and deliberately bollixed his hard drive to cover your tracks."

"If you were among them, I doubt we'd be having this polite conversation."

"Well, in my opinion, plenty of people are idiots. The problem with their comfortable little theory is that we _did_ find collaboration between the hard and soft files, and we _were_ able to crack Stryker's codes and start to pull things out. And then, mysteriously, the entire hard drive went missing. The hard drive, the backups, the hard copies. Everything. Whoosh. Gone."

Hank felt a cold shiver go down his back.

"Yes," Gloria continued. "How strange that it all disappeared in one of the most secure labs on the face of the free world. A more cynical woman would think someone upstairs had a few things to hide." She paused. "And a more loyal agent would never have mentioned these things to you."

Isidro leaned forward and rubbed his head. He was sweating already. "Please, dear God, someone tell me this was a break in."

"I wish I could, Mr. Delgado. But there are some things I'm just not willing to lie about. So I'm going to ask you, Mr. McCoy; do you know anything about Project Wideawake? At this point, I'm _praying_ that you did something utterly illegal and made copies to cover your own interests."

Hank sighed. "I don't know a thing about Project Wideawake, Ms. Angstrom, but I'm going to see if anyone else does, as soon as I leave here. It seems that I may be back sooner than I expected."

Gloria gave a slight nod and a smile. "You may have made my year, Hank. You just may. And since you'll be leaving tonight, I have something for you to take back." She reached into her blazer and pulled out a blank, sealed envelope. "Inside this you will find full American citizenship for Kurt Wagner, right down to the social security number. We've even put in his permanent address at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters."

Hank hesitated, noting to the slight emphasis Gloria put on the word "permanent". Then he took the envelope from her hand.

Isidro gave a relieved sigh and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. "And here I was afraid he'd be deported."

Both Gloria and Hank looked back at him with stony calm.

"He doesn't understand, does he?" she asked in a conversational tone.

"Apparently not," Hank replied. "I'll leave the explanation to you."

Ms. Angstrom sat in her seat, primly folded her hands in her lap, and leaned forward. "Mister Delgado, in many ways it would be much better for your friend if he _was_ deported. What I handed to Hank isn't freedom: it's a leash. Despite the fact that Mr. Wagner was operating against his will, under the most extreme duress we've ever seen, he still has the ability to waltz into any sensitive area by sheer will alone. Because of him, we've got a few million dollars worth of 'redecorating' going on at the Oval Office. Those of us with brains have been thanking God that Stryker didn't simply want the President _dead_, because in that case Mr. Wagner would have been able to get in and out without being intercepted or seen.

"And that has us all very, very nervous, Isidro. Here we have a foreign national, capable of evading capture and bypassing national boundaries at his whim, without even many records from his home country, thanks to his gypsy upbringing. And now that he's gone to ground, we'll never find him again. Or will we? Why, yes; yes, we have. In fact, he's at the same spot that the very worrisome 'Cat Who Walks Through Walls' is staying at as well: a certain university in Westchester, and he seems comfortable enough to stay there. So let's encourage it.

"The public has not known about Professor Xavier's school until recently. And with any luck, we've squashed that as flat as we can. However, certain members of the 'inner circle' have known mutants were being schooled there for over a decade. It would have driven Stryker into a rage if he realized that the President of the United States knew something about the school by the time he'd approached him.

"Until last year, everything was in a state of equilibrium. We had concerns that combat training might be going on here, but we also knew that a well-placed daisy-cutter or MOAB could balance the equation. Even the ones who didn't trust mutants had to admit it was nice to have a single spot to watch." She sighed and rubbed her left temple. "Colonel Stryker didn't see it that way, so he took a page from General Lemnitzer's book, with one big difference. Once Kennedy found out about Operation Northwoods he put Lemnitzer on a short leash; Stryker didn't give us the chance. And this little Black Op spread much, much farther than Cuba.

"But as Professor Charles Xavier has been uncommonly forthright with us, I think it's only right that we compromise as well. He didn't _have_ to show up with Mr. Wagner in the Oval Office during that announcement, nor did he have to mention Katherine Pryde's influence. Some see saber-rattling: others see a polite notification that two security threats are now contained in his school, and can be monitored by anyone who cares to look. It's all how you see things, gentlemen. In any case, the last thing we can afford is out-and-out war with part of our own population." She stood up, and the other two men stood with her. "Besides: to justify a war with the so-called 'X-men', we'd have to give a reason, which would lead to Stryker's manipulations, then Alkali lake, and eventually we'd have to explain where Stryker's funds came from, and why his machine attacked millions of foreign nationals as well. And that would be such a sticky geopolitical situation...."

Hank cocked an eyebrow. "Surely everyone else has noticed the casualty figures radiate out from one particular spot in Canada?"

"Oh, yes, they have, but so far they don't have the proof that this had either mutant involvement or official sanction, so they're keeping their grumbles to a minimum."

"And if that proof ever surfaced, mutants wouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block," Isidro finished softly.

Gloria patted Isidro on the arm. "You learn fast, young grasshopper."

"I wish I didn't," Isidro replied. He was having a difficult time meeting Gloria's gaze. "This makes me feel like I need a shower."

"And that revulsion is what's going to make you a damn fine cop when you graduate."

"You... you still want me to go into the force? Even with my...." He gestured helplessly with his hands. "Mutant experience?"

"We have millions of police that have no mutant 'contamination', but precious few with first person experience. And unless we can reverse those numbers, what happened in Boston last year will only be the start of the kind of urban unrest and damage unseen since the Watts riots. You're going to finish your law enforcement training, and then you're getting placed where you're going to do the most good, because despite what the FOH thinks, we need people like you."

She gently steered him to the door, where Hank was already waiting. "Now, we've got a dinner date that I know Henry has been looking forward to for a while."

"Indeed!" Henry said. "I've been hoping to speak with Moira on a few of her theories for a while now."

He opened the door for his two comrades.

"And I assume you'll leave poor Nathan out in the cold again?" Gloria chided playfully.

"Let's just say he isn't nearly as cute."

All out. Door closed.

------

And down the street, in another hotel room with drawn curtains, a cleaning maid sat on the bed with what seemed to be a small transistor radio in her hand, listening in with a single earphone.

"Contact Mr. Sinister," the voice finished. "Advise of situation. Extraction necessary."

She lifted the small, disguised transmitter to her lips. "Acknowledged," she replied softly.

She sighed, shook her head, pulled out a cell phone from her pocket and dialed something much more complex than even an international phone number. Despite the ease with which roving calls could be intercepted, this was one conversation that would remain private.

It rang once before being answered by a modulated, serene, androgynous voice. "State the emergency"

"Sir, it is believed that you are in immediate danger of discovery."

Pause. "What leads to this assumption?"

"First, it appears that Stryker's files did have backups out of our reach. Apparently, Xavier managed to copy the hard drive. They're not sure how, sir."

"This was a known possibility, and not enough to warrant this conversation."

"Yes, sir. However, someone is also launching an assault on our servers. They began by using passwords assigned to roving base three, which has been incommunicado for over 36 hours now."

"Where was roving base three assigned during that time?"

The maid drew in a deep breath. "They were doing a shakedown of Unit 6, when they detected interference by the X-men. Unit six' cockpit was all that the hounds could send back, and there wasn't much left of it, either."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"A lot of our email server was compromised before they shut it all down," she went on. "MIS guarantees that your involvement will be traced. It's just a matter of when they can relay the information to the right people."

Despite the modulation, the androgynous voice actually sounded a bit stressed. "What are they proposing?"

"An extraction, sir. Before Henry McCoy can contact Xavier and exchange information."

"And this will be the precise extraction we previously discussed?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Do it."

End conversation. The maid placed the cell phone back in her pocket, then turned the tiny communication relay to a local station and reclipped it to her lapel. She pulled the vacuum cleaner off her cart, and began to clean the room.

TBC....


	5. Taken

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 4**

Though Hank had been meeting both Moira and Nathaniel on a daily basis, they met for dinner as if they hadn't seen each other in months. For once, their discussions wouldn't be recorded, nor would they be so obviously guarded by the finest marines Washington had to offer. Right now, the only visible presence was Gloria, seated with them at their table.

Hank was by far the youngest of the group, a large, vibrant man in his late 20s, with wrists as big around as most men's elbows. By contrast, Nathaniel Essex was a mere toothpick. If viewed separately, one could see that Nathan stood a bit over six feet, a distinguished British gentleman in his 40s, his raven hair cut short and just beginning to gray at the temples. He shone of refinement, his tuxedo pressed and unblemished, his manners formal, polite, and impeccable. He would be better cast as James Bond than a world-classed, Nobel-prize-winning scientist. It wasn't fair to line him up next to the gentle giant that was Hank McCoy.

And Moira... well, Moira seemed to be trying to make herself look older and more dour, and her body was stubbornly refusing to go along. Her reddish-brown hair was cut just above shoulder length, in a style that might be convenient, but did the rest of her no justice whatsoever. She wore a style of clothing more befitting a stereotypical librarian from the 60s. Her flat, black pumps had seen better days, along with the change of several fashion seasons. And she never wore makeup. Ever. A waste of time, it was, and a waste of money besides. Either they'd want her for her mind, or not at all. With the way she tended to frown in concentration, it was a wonder that her face stayed free of such creases. But free of wrinkles it remained, and free of age spots and other blemishes. Despite her best efforts, there was still a pretty woman under all that frump.

That beauty poked through, even if just for a moment, as her face lit up at Hank, Gloria, and Isidro's approach. She raised her hand and gave a quick ascending whistle, just loud enough to be heard over the hubbub of dinner conversation.

"Oh, good, you chose a table this time," Hank said as he sat himself down.

"With how ye've carped about booths, ye think I'd do anything else?" Moira asked.

"I'm simply not designed for close quarters, Moira. Surely that would be most evident by now."

"That explains the Hum Vee in the parking garage," Nathan observed.

"Why does everyone assume I have to drive such an inefficient monstrosity? There are other forms of transportation with head clearance."

Nathan gave a slight smile as he raised his wineglass. "I've been able to triple the fuel efficiency on mine."

Hank's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "You're serious?"

"I consider it a pet project." He sipped. "A pity it's too expensive to put into mass production."

Outside, the faint, but annoying, sound of a car alarm went off. Moira growled in irritation. "Can't I go anywhere in this damned country without hearin' one of those bloody things?"

"Once you hit the rural areas, yes, but I'm afraid it's a sad fact of urban life," Hank replied. "At least there are laws against them going off for more than a few minutes at a time--"

Gloria's left hand shot out to silence them. Her right pressed her earpiece closer. All stopped and stared at her. Out of the corner of his eye, Isidro caught movement on the table. He looked again, but it had stopped. Another car alarm went off, this one closer than the first. A few of the patrons were starting to look annoyed as well.

The movement happened again, and this time Isidro was watching for it: a subtle ripple in the wine of the half-filled glass. The hallmark of an earthquake... or....

"Is that an impact tremor?" he whispered.

Gloria's head whipped back over her shoulder, facing the rear of the restaurant.

"Shit," she hissed through clenched teeth.

Somewhere very close by, at least two cars collided. Then another, and another after that. The patrons looked around, confused and alarmed. At least one couple was watching the ripples in their glass. Isidro's chest tightened so much that it squeezed his heart up into his throat. His hands started trembling. They couldn't be here. They just couldn't.....

Agent Gloria Angstrom turned back to the rest of the table. "Run. Now."

In less than the time it took to stand away from the table, the reinforced kitchen wall exploded as if nothing more than a movie set of balsa wood and canvas. In its wake stood something out of Isidro and Hank's worst nightmares: an amplifier suit.

Gloria pulled her pistol as she leapt away from the table. "MOVE!"

She let off four shots in rapid succession as she ran to a less-occupied section of the restaurant. _Come on you walking scrap heap, track me!_ The shots rang off of the suit's armor without so much as a scratch, burying themselves in the ceiling. But she had her wish. It turned to face her and extended an arm.

Before Hank even knew what he was doing, he picked up the heavy mahogany table and flung it at the suit's arm like an oversized discus. It contacted a split second before a deafening hail of shells erupted, generating a cloud of debris. Gloria fell and disappeared in the grayish cloud.

From then on it was insanity. Civilians ran everywhere. One "dining couple" pulled out weapons and gave cover fire while another tried to spirit their three charges away. The agents' actions were commendable, but ultimately futile. Anyone with a gun was cut down with a flick of the nightmare's metal wrist. Hank threw another table. This time it hit the suit in its "head", the housing for its sensor arrays. It spun and lurched for Hank, who barely managed to jump away in time. Was it out of shells?

_Not unless it was released with less than half capacity_, Hank thought as he dodged a second time. _It wants **me**. And it probably wants Isidro as well. Scott was right: there's a mole here somewhere...._

Now what would he do? If he lead it outside, God only knew how many cars and pedestrians would be crushed in the battle. But if they stayed in here, they'd bring the whole building down. Sooner or later, this thing was bound to hit a load bearing wall. And there was the little matter of a damaged kitchen....

As if some cruel god heard his thoughts, an explosion went up in the kitchen behind them. Leaking gas from the damaged ranges had finally caught, and the flames were spreading fast. From what he knew of the amplifier suit, not flames, nor smoke, nor even the complete collapse of the building would bother this robotic nightmare in the least. It was a shame no one else in the place was so lucky. Hank spared a moment to scan for his comrades, and caught sight of Nathaniel herding Moira and Isidro out the back way, perilously close to the flames. Close enough to confuse the suit's IR sensors, perhaps? The suit didn't even turn around. It must have worked.

_Good move, Nathan_, Hank thought. _At least three of us are safe._ _Now I just need to extricate myself...._

The ceiling groaned, and Hank's choice was made for him. He leapt through the window as a huge fist slammed down behind him. He'd misjudged his leap; forgotten how strong he was, or perhaps the thin nature of the glass. Something meant to put him on the sidewalk instead launched him halfway across the street, and into the path of a delivery truck. Hank hit the ground and sprung up again, a good twenty feet, and the truck sailed underneath him, the driver's panicky foot slamming on the brakes only after Hank had cleared the cab. Hank landed on top of the rear compartment and crouched low, watching the enemy for its next move.

_Scott was right about this, too: once an X-man, always an X-man_, he thought ruefully. _I never thought I'd actually use this combat training again...._

The amp suit was fighting to get clear of the timbers and pipes that rained down upon it. Apparently, that last blow was all the battered restaurant could stand, and it was coming down around the suit's metaphysical ears. But the debris was but an annoyance. Like a weightlifter kicking over trash cans, the suit muscled its way out of the burning wreckage. The place collapsed behind it, sending burning embers into the air.

Hank fought not to think of Gloria. She was probably already dead. He prayed Nathaniel had gotten Isidro and Moira clear in time.

And then he heard something that gave him hope. Above the crackling flames and creaking timbers, there rose the sound of helicopters, and they were flying very, very low. The armored suit looked up. In a strangely human move, it put its arm up to shield its head as an Apache attack helicopter unloaded thousands of rounds the size of railroad spikes. The walking tank staggered back, crouched against the chain gun's relentless assault, and didn't notice when another Apache came in from the other side and opened fire.

The UPS truck under Hank shuddered to life again. The driver had finally gotten it back into gear, and he was wasting no time in this war zone. Hank held onto the roof of the delivery van and crouched low, riding his ticket to freedom. Suddenly, a stray round hit Hank squarely in the shoulder, knocking him off the metal roof. He tried to twist, to land on all fours, and surprised himself by managing to land on both feet and his good arm. His left shoulder was completely numb, and bleeding badly. Bad. Very bad. Too many arteries to hit, too easy to bleed to death. If he passed out here....

Nathan was there beside him. His formerly black tuxedo was more of a charcoal gray, now, and ripped in several locations. He pulled Hank's right arm over his shoulder and helped him to his feet.

"They've got F-16s on the way, Henry!" Nathan shouted over the barrage. "We can't hang around ground zero like this!"

Once Hank got to his feet, he could walk. Even run. He found himself looking for Scott and Jean again, waiting for their commands, just like old times. This was turning into a mission again, something he swore he'd never repeat. They rounded the corner, and the noise cut down to the point that they could speak.

"Moira and Isidro?" Hank asked.

"Safe."

"Gloria?"

"I don't know. Keep moving, Henry. The whole block's going to go up when the Apaches unleash their missiles, if not when the fighters come. Of all the places for that thing to strike, Washington DC might not have been the wisest move."

Nathan had a point. Considering the speed with which the Apaches got there, they must have been very close indeed, just waiting for the possibility of an assault like this. And the fighter jets were ready around the clock. They were under the same tight security umbrella that the President himself enjoyed. Nothing like having the military there to protect _you_, for once.

Nathan looked up with trepidation. "Oh dear."

He pulled Hank into a side alley and pushed both of them flat against the wall, in anticipation of a shockwave. His hand was oddly cool against Hank's bare neck. Hank heard the piercing scream of an F-16 as it flew over somewhere above them, but there was no accompanying boom. Had they decided not to bomb it after all? Would there be too much damage to the surrounding block? The Apaches must be equipped with Hellfire missiles: surely their radius wasn't that large? Once the scream died down, Hank realized that he was only listening to his own ears ringing. Even the shooting had stopped. His body trembled with shock and exhaustion. He tried to lift his head away from the wall... and found himself paralyzed. No matter what, he couldn't make himself move.

A thousand things raced through his mind. Nerve damage? Hysterical paralysis? Had the suit let off some sort of neurotoxin? He found himself slipping to the ground, an uncomfortable, "sticky" sensation on his neck where Nathan had touched him. He couldn't even move his eyes: he was forced to stare straight ahead at a beige stucco wall.

He heard Nathan's voice behind him. "Move it, we don't have much time. It sounds like it was recalled early."

Hank was lifted up by his arms. The asphalt rushed by beneath him as two people dragged him along.

An unfamiliar male voice said, "Jesus, he's heavy. You sure you have enough to knock him out in that slap pack?"

"Yes," Nathan answered. "Mind the shoulder. I don't want him bleeding to death."

A fender came into view. They were loading him into some kind of truck.

"It'd save a lot of problems if he did," that same voice grumbled. "One less freak in the world, y'know? One less guy who knows too much."

More hands grabbed his legs, and he was lifted entirely off the ground.

"Christ, buddy, go on a diet, willya?" a different man grunted.

"Do you want test subjects or don't you?" Nathan asked, his voice cold. "Must I remind you of the 'big picture'?"

They weren't gentle. The hard plastic floor of the vehicle scraped Hank's face, drawing blood. Something brushed against the back of his neck, and he was now certain there was a skin-absorbed slap pack firmly attached there. No wonder Nathan's hand felt so odd. As they shoved him further into the vehicle, Hank saw Moira and Isidro as well. Both unconscious, both bound and gagged.

Hank had finally uncovered their well-placed mole... but it was far, far too late to tell anyone. Nathan knelt by Hank's side, impassively watching with the same interest given to an insect collection.

"Unexpected," he mused. "They should have closed immediately. Well, we can't have your eyes drying out on the way there, can we, Henry?"

He reached out and closed Hank's eyes, his action disturbingly reminiscent of a mortician preparing a corpse for burial.

TBC....


	6. Uncovered Betrayal

**Editor's Note:** Just a word of warning: there are a few racial epithets listed here. Epithets are horrid things, to be sure, but they're hard to avoid when you're writing about hatred, and the nightmares it causes.... :/

****

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 5**

Katherine Pryde was strapped to the table, nude, in the darkened room. It wasn't so much that there was no light at all, but it was dim, and things were oddly indistinct. There was a hand behind her, a huge robotic thing that supported her head like some demented pillow, but whenever she tried to move it squeezed her neck until she could barely breathe. Phasing was out of the question. The men around her wore lab coats, but their faces were blurred, like digitized, unwilling participants on a reality show. Their scalpels looked like felt pens.

_Oh God, this is a dream. This is a dream. Wake up._

The drew on her words that cut and left her bleeding. Cut places no one should even _touch_. Jewess whore. Mutant traitor. Kike. Yid. Marimé. Filth. Voices alternately shouted and whispered echoing nonsense in the shadowy void around her.

_Wake up. Wake UP!_

The huge armored hand behind her locked into place, and she was now on the cockpit of an amplifier suit, while the faceless ones continued their writing, burning through flesh into bone. She was being prepared as a pilot.

**_Wake UP, dammit!_** **__**

She forced her eyes open, forced herself to awaken, forced herself to look at the lit table lamp by her bed. She couldn't yet move anything but her eyelids. She laid there on her side, the nightmare scrabbling at the back of her mind, trying to drag her once more into its depths, lulling her with the false promise of sleep. The room, _her_ room, darkened momentarily as the vision tried to reassert itself. She kept her eyes open. In a few seconds, the darkness was gone.

She blinked and moved her arms. Those indistinct voices suddenly snapped into focus as she looked around the dorm room. Jubilee and Siryn were talking in urgent, low tones; something about who had more information. They hadn't noticed Kate was awake yet. The door to the room was open, the hall lit brightly, and people were running up and down its length.

"Kitty?" someone whispered behind her.

Kate turned quickly and looked back at Rosa, their newest student. She sat on her own bed, dressed in Artie's jeans and Rhane's slightly oversized cable sweater, her knees tucked to her chest. Shaking and scared out of her mind.

"Rosa?" Kitty asked groggily. "What's... what's going on?"

"Theresa, I _told_ you you were talking too loud!" Jubilee whispered harshly.

"Just because I can shatter glass doesn't mean I don't know how to be quiet!" Siryn shot back.

"No, no, it's all right," Kate told them as she sat up. "I was having a nightmare anyway."

"The metal thing, it took Hank," Rosa whimpered, her eyes brimming with tears. "Is on television."

When Rosa first arrived, not two days ago, she couldn't speak a word of English. After a few private sessions with Professor Xavier, she was up to basic conversation. Kate remembered that Xavier was supposed to have done the same with a few other students, notably Piotr, but hearing about something after the fact and seeing the changes were two different things entirely.

"Metal thing?" Kate repeated, looking from Rosa to Jubilee to Siryn.

"One of those damned, bloody suits," Theresa said. "Attacked the lot of them at dinner. Took Nathan, Isidro, and Moira too."

"Rhane's having fits," Jubilee added. "She wants to go down there and start tracking them or something."

"Oh, Jeez, that's right," Kitty muttered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She noticed she was still in her clothes. "Moira's her godmother."

"Well, _duh!_ She brought her to the institute last year herself!"

"What if it come here?" Rosa whispered in a choked voice. "What if it come for me again?"

Rosa was under so much stress that it was a wonder she wasn't "reverting" again. Kate reached out and gently grabbed Rosa's arm.

"Rosa, do you know what my power is?" Rosa shook her head, and Kitty continued, "I go through things like a ghost. And do you know what happens when I go through computers and electrical stuff?" Again, Rosa didn't know. "I _kill_ them. I kill them deader than hell. That's why I'm always so careful around computers. I saw some of Hank and Scott's schematics on those suits. I know just where to go through them to cripple them. Okay?"

Rosa swallowed and nodded. At that instant, a flock of Jamies ran down the hall, each one stopping at a different doorway, including theirs.

"We got satellite photos," he panted. "They're on TV in the rec room."

Rosa gave a odd whine, and something moved under the sleeve in Kitty's grasp. Kitty looked back. That last bit of information must have done it: poor Rosa was changing.

Kitty held her breath. She'd often seen Rhane's transformation into a wolf, her face elongating into a muzzle, the fur blossoming onto her face and sweeping across her skin like a reddish-brown tide. Rosa's was similar, if with a far more disturbing result. One thing Rosa had over Rhane, though: when Rosa was finished, she could still wear clothing, even if the jeans just went down to her new "knees". Rhane was a bit more tricky: wolves and clothing didn't exactly mix.

Kitty looked back at Theresa and Jubilee, a pained grimace on her face. "Guys, I gotta get down there. Can you...?"

Theresa stepped in and gently guided Rosa off the bed. "C'mon, dearie, it's okay. You wanna come down with us?"

Kate didn't stay long enough to see the outcome: she left Jubilee and Siryn there as she phased through the bed down into the main hall. She slowed her descent just enough to avoid a broken ankle as she hit the hardwood floor running. The TV was on and blaring in the next room over.

"Again, a terrorist attack has happened in Washington DC, barely a mile from the White House. According to eyewitnesses, a large robot, standing anywhere between one and two stories high, popped out of a tractor-trailer and headed straight for the Jefferson-A Loews Hotel --"

_Exactly where Hank was staying_, Kate thought. _Who the hell narked on them? Security should be tight as a drum!_

She looked in the rec room. The boys must have learned about the news broadcast first, because they were all there, standing around the TV. The adults were all absent. Kitty "walked" up a few steps into the air and hovered near the ceiling for a better look. She was in luck: the newscasters chose that time to replay an overhead view of the battle. The amplifier suit was the exact same model as the ones that attacked the institute in March, and it was being peppered by a chain gun. Jamie was wrong, or these were different shots than what he had seen; those were much too low to be satellite photos, and the wrong angle besides. These had to be from someone's steady cam, maybe from the helicopter that was doing the shooting....

"You're seeing the view from the pilot of the Apache gunship as he fired on the unknown machine," the broadcaster said calmly. "Keep in mind the caliber of weapon being used, and note that the assailant is only suffering minor, cosmetic damage. The armor has been likened to that of an M1 Abrams...."

_Makes an Abrams look like tin foil, _Kitty thought_. I've seen the metallurgical analysis. And where's Pete? Where's Bobby, Scott, even Kurt? Have they already gone? I didn't hear the Blackbird lift off...._

The rest of the girls were thundering down the stairs, as well as a few more Jamies, one of which "winked out" as he passed under Kate. No one had noticed her up above them like that. Where were the teachers? Where were the Xmen?

She phased through the wall behind her. Maybe they were in the study. That was the easiest "war room" to get to. As she plunged through empty rooms and neared her goal, she could hear voices. Rhane's was the most shrill.

"Ye've got to take me with you!" she shouted. "I can track her! I can find her!"

"So can I, kiddo, and I'm bulletproof," Logan answered. "You ain't."

"Ye can't keep me out like this!"

Kitty stopped in the darkened hallway just outside the open door. Then she got on her hands and knees and peeked into the study, her head just a foot off the ground, hoping the lower position would keep her from being immediately spotted.

All the Xmen were there. All were in uniform. Every seat was taken, much of the floor was occupied, and Kurt, as usual, stuck to the ceiling like a big blue gecko. How he kept from getting dizzy with all his blood rushing to his head that way, Kitty would never know. Only Rhane and the professor were in "civilian" attire. The tension was too thick for a mere knife to cut. Cyclops was pacing around a small open spot on the floor. He always seemed to be pacing these days.

"Two minutes too late," he snarled, flexing his hands into fists. "Two damn minutes. Two more minutes, and we would have known about Nathan."

"Knew about Nathan"? What the hell? What was going on with Nathaniel? Unless.... No, he couldn't be... He'd known Hank and Moira for years. He couldn't be the informant....He wouldn't betray two close friends....

Iceman voiced the questions swirling around Katherine's mind. "What's happening with Nathan?"

"Turns out he and Mr. Sinister share an email address. And a whole shitload of other stuff," Logan growled.

White hot daggers went through Kate; through her heart, her lungs, her chest. Dear God, no. This couldn't be true....

"So he.. wasn't kidnapped with the rest of them?" Rogue asked, with slow, horrific realization in her voice.

"Can you say 'cover up' boys and girls? I knew you could."

"The whole thing was just a way for him to disappear before we blew the whistle," Cyclops added.

"They must have put all this into motion the second we started poking around in their systems," Storm said.

"Earlier," Xavier told her. "This must have been planned since they knew about Hank and Isidro's coming. That semi had been in the city for three days."

"Has Miss Angstrom been able to tell us anything else at all?" Kurt asked softly.

"Considering that she's undergoing emergency surgery, I doubt we'll hear anything for quite a while."

"At least we got one witness," Rogue muttered. "One who don't believe Magneto was behind it all."

"Where we going, prof?" Logan asked. "Say the word. We been ready all damn day."

"Ye've got to take me with you!" Rhane shouted again.

"Rhane! You aren't going and that's final!" Professor spoke sternly. "Even Scott isn't going! Someone has to guard the school!"

Colossus looked down at Cyclops with bewilderment. "You are not going?"

Cyclops whirled on Colossus. "You think I _want_ to stay behind? You think I _want_ to sit on my hands while God knows what happens to Hank? The fact is we can't leave this place undefended. You'll need Logan to track people down, Kurt to get them out of there, and Ororo to pilot the blackbird and take care of any high fliers." He poked Colossus in the chest. "And guess who gets to go toe-to-toe with those things? Especially if you meet another one with a forcefield?"

Cyclops looked down and away, forcing himself to something like a state of calm. For a second, Kitty swore he looked right at her. But the moment passed, and Cyclops didn't say a word about her.

"I'm the one who's mission replaceable, as far as skill and power goes," he said. "And I can take an enemy down before they get close to the school." He faced Iceman and Rogue. "And you guys are needed here, too. If I go down, you've got to take my power and keep shooting, Rogue. And Bobby--"

"You'd better rethink me not coming along," Iceman interrupted. "If we get to one of those labs, and we come across things like hydraulics, coolants for power plants -- maybe we just need to make the damn things slip up for a few feet."

"Bobby--"

"We're talking long range, untraceable, industrial sabotage!" Iceman exclaimed. "If we have to screw up the offices of FOH, and we don't want anyone to know we did it -- I've been practicing freezing _anti-freeze_, for God's sake! And the evidence will melt -- not even fingerprints!"

"I hate to say this, Scott, but Bobby has a point," Storm said. "If we want to 'gum up the works', he's going to be vital. Especially if we have to go somewhere that hides under a shroud of respectability."

"You think we'll have to take out Nathan's labs?" Logan asked.

"We might, but I doubt he's stupid enough to use them for this. Those photos...." Storm's voice caught. She swallowed and began again. "Those pictures were of small labs, not much larger than a portable classroom, and everything was bolted to the walls. You know what that says to me? Especially considering our 'friend's' habits of using semis?"

"Mobile labs," Kurt finished. "They could... they could be killing someone as they go down a highway, right next to a school bus. How do you track something like that down?"

Katherine scrambled back and leaned against the hallway. The Xmen were leaving on a mission to rescue Hank and the others. FOH was behind this. And Nathan was working for FOH. He was Mr. Sinister. Mister Goddamned "mutants are my lab rats" Sinister. Damn him. Kate's face flushed hot, her teeth clenched. _Damn him!_ She'd read every theory that rat bastard put out! He'd earned two Nobel Peace Prizes! PEACE prizes! She _idolized_ him! The _world_ idolized him! And now.... Now he'd joined a bunch of hateful, vicious, ignorant pricks that wanted to maintain "genetic purity" at all costs. Maybe he was even leading them. The emails said he and Larry Trask were working together....

And she had idolized him. She sank through the floor, ashamed of the tears that welled in her eyes. In the study, the discussion went on.

"I was guessin' Cerebro," Rogue posed a tentative answer to Kurt's question. "Y'all found me with it two or three times."

"And if he ain't in the US anymore?" Logan asked. "Maybe he went back to Europe or Mexico or wherever he pulls this mad scientist crap?"

"No matter what, the Blackbird must be ready to go," Kurt said. "Cyclops, do you want me down there now?"

"I want everyone down there except Rhane and Rogue." He fixed Iceman with an unnerving, emotionless stare. "I don't like doing this, Bobby, but I like the idea of losing a tactical advantage even less. Don't you dare get killed on us."

"I just hope I don't run into my little brother," Iceman said quietly as he left the room. "It'd be just my luck to find he'd answered FOH's latest 'Soldiers of Purity' recruitment drive."

TBC....


	7. Experimentation

**Editor's note:** As a word of caution, and a call to action, I do mention two real-life circumstances here: the USSR's infamous "prisoner experimentation", and the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The former we can all imagine happening under Russia's ruthless line of dictators and secret police, but the latter kept going for 30 or 40 years, ending only in the early 1970s... and it happened right here in America. :(

If you have the courage, you might want to look these incidents up. The words "never again" might come to mind, but only constant vigilance can truly prevent such medical atrocities.

****

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 6**

Hank hoped that he could "memorize" the twists and turns of the van. Perhaps he could use them to retrace his position. But then they loaded him into what felt like a crate, and from there he heard the distinct engine whine of a "big bird", at least a 727 class jet. So much for that idea.

_Hurry up and find us, Xavier_, he thought. _This thing has to be plastered all over the news by now. You've got to be looking for us. For at least one of us._

He felt something placed on his head, like a circlet of metal.

"O-ho! Still conscious, are we, Henry?" Nathaniel's voice said with amusement. "Don't worry, I won't let you be bored for the trip."

:

How can someone tell when they go unconscious when their eyes are already closed? The cessation of sound, perhaps? A dream state? Someone calling out to you "wake up"? Hank had none of these clues, which struck him as a bit unfair. Nathaniel spoke his piece, and the next thing Hank knew he was opening his eyes to a hellishly bright light. He cried out in pain and surprise and squinted his eyes shut. By reflex he attempted to shade them. That was his first indicator that he was strapped down. In fact, he couldn't even move his head. It wasn't paralysis, but it was close.

_Now that I can open my eyes, they've made sure it doesn't matter, _he thought_. Nathan, when I get out of this, I'm going to snap your neck._

Apparently he was alone in the room. Or, if not, whoever was there was being completely silent, and was deliberately not letting on that they knew Henry was awake. He tried moving his fingers and toes. That worked. They hadn't bothered encasing them. But he was bound at the wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, pelvis, shoulders, forehead.... They didn't secure psychotic cases this well to their beds. The straps were the tough industrial-grade web belts used for securing cars to flatbed trailers. Oh, and Hank was pretty sure he was nude. The light glaring down on him, likely some sort of halogen, provided a measure of warmth at least.

When his eyes finally got a bit more used to the piercing white that shone pink through his eyelids, he chanced opening his eyes again. Though it was a little difficult to see through the haze of white, he could make out the basic details. Apparantly he was alone, in what seemed to be a small testing room. No equipment that he could find, but since he couldn't move his head, his view was very limited. The room was a bit odd by his standards. He understood the need for tough, relatively sterile, brushed steel walls and ceiling, but the prison bars in front of him were a bizarre touch. A quick attempt at a weight shift told Hank the bed was solidly attached to the floor. So they made the room just for the purpose of keeping a subject bound... and having full view of them...

Even the infamous Soviet era "prisoner experiment" rooms had the decency to be fully enclosed, with just a viewing panel in the metal door. They didn't have the entire wall reduced to bars so everyone and their brother could watch the wretches in their death throws, like some sadistic sideshow....

"Henry, I'm honestly impressed," Nathaniel's hated voice said from somewhere past the prison bars. "I hadn't expected you to awaken this soon."

"Why, Nathan?" Hank asked.

" 'Why'?"

"Yes, Nathaniel. Why. Why are you doing this? What do you have to gain from allying yourself to mutant haters like Friends of Humanity?"

"This is the first decent conversation I've had from one of my test subjects for some time." The voice shifted, and coupled with the soft sound of footsteps, Hank could imagine Nathan walking closer down the hall. "All right, Henry. If you're going to keep your head so well, you deserve some answers for it."

Hank's bed began to tilt towards the wall of bars. Soon he was at a 60 degree angle. The light no longer shone directly in his eyes, and he could see past the bars now. There was another cell opposite him ten feet away. Like his, it had bars and featureless metal walls. He presumed his cell also had the same cement floor and small drain in the corner. The differences? First, there was no bed in the center of the other cell. Second, that cell had Moira and Isidro sprawled, unconscious, on the floor. At least Nathan had granted them some measure of dignity and allowed them to keep their clothing.

Nathan walked into the corridor between cells, dressed in ominously stained green scrubs. He looked down at the blood stains and smiled a bit.

"Please forgive the 'business casual' attire," he said. "You're not my only focus, you know."

"And here I expected you in a tuxedo with a few leggy assistants," Henry mumbled.

Nathan cocked an eyebrow. "And a white Angora or Persian to go with it? Too much Ian Fleming will rot your brain, Henry." He stood directly in front of the cell, hands loosely folded in front of him. "I can trade James Bond subrefrences with you all day, but somehow I doubt that's what's on your mind."

"Dammit, Nathan, you're one of the top geneticists and microbiologists in the world!" Hank blurted out. "You've got all the funding you could want, you've got government sanction for hundreds of projects, _why are you doing this?"_

"Ahh, yes, back to that. Why do I ally myself with petty little psychotics that want to stop evolution in its tracks?" His pleasant demeanor was all the more infuriating. "Well, they give me a far greater reach to test subjects than I'd ever be able to get on my own, they work for free, and they _are_ persistent. The few mutants that die on the way here are more than made up for in the ones that survive their 'overenthusiastic' captors."

_'Petty little psychotics'? _Hank thought_. That's hardly sympathetic.... In fact, it sounds like he's just using them...._ Aloud, he asked, "The way you talk, they may as well be spilling water as killing people."

"You know the old saying, Henry: you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. They're a necessary evil at the moment. I'll jettison them soon enough, but not before they've outlived their usefulness."

"As I apparently have."

"Oh, come now, there's no need for _that_ kind of surly tone."

"Surly? _Surly?_ I've gone toe-to-toe with walking weapons platforms, watched people get turned into modern wall art, and had the man who I shared a friendship for ten years turn out to the next big Dr. Mengele! I think this has gone a bit beyond 'surly' by now!"

"Funny how you should mention him." Nathan examined his nails. "I can always tell someone's grade of education from that subreference. You have to admit we learned more about the human condition from him."

"I don't suppose you coordinated the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment too?"

Nathan smiled as he looked back up. "Not personally. I have very little interest in flatscans anymore, Henry. They're old news. A chapter of history about to be closed. We are the future, my friend. We are the ones who will take over." He looked above Hank, at the light, and then checked his watch. "We just need to make a few improvements first."

Hank's head went momentarily light. Something was tugging at him, as if he was on the verge of sleep, though he didn't feel drowsy at all. He closed his eyes for what he thought would only be a second, then found it an effort to open them again. His body trembled, the taut muscles twitching under his skin.

"Ah, _there_ we go," Nathan said, a hint of smug triumph in his voice. "I really hadn't thought you'd be awake before the final phase, but consciousness will be an added bonus." He leaned forward. "It happened before, didn't it, Henry? You remember the sensation? Last year, seconds after the worst headache of your life?"

_Oh God, no…._

"Yes, by the looks of things, you do. I knew your secondary mutation had activated once. So many have, you know. Do you realize how many more subjects I've received since the general's little fiasco? Do you have any clue as to what that little tin soldier put into motion? If Stryker knew, he might have decided on a different method."

Hank _forced_ his eyes open, _forced_ himself to look at Nathan. The smug bastard was just standing there with his forearms resting on the bars, brazenly clasping his hands inside of Hank's cell. He even had one foot resting on the lower bar, like he was casually watching a zoo exhibit from behind the barrier.

"That's all this is to you?" Hank managed to spit out. "Some kind of exhibit? Something to watch?"

"Don't fight it, Henry. You know you won't win. You couldn't stop mother nature the first time. What chance do you have a second? This is your ultimate genetic potential I'm bringing out. _Embrace_ it."

Hank jerked spasmodically, his whole body straining against the straps, and he felt a horrendous pain in his shoulder. He cried out, and his voice sounded deeper, distorted… even wrong.

"Mind the shoulder, Henry." If anything, Nathan's voice sounded even oilier. "Your shoulder blade may be intact, but the rest isn't very happy with you—"

**_"I'll kill you !"_** Hank screamed.

"Yes, I _thought_ the testosterone levels would be shooting up about now. Thank you for the confirmation. What else do you have in store for me, Henry?"

At that point, a woman's voice called from the cell across from them both. "Nathan?"

Nathan looked around, mildly annoyed at Moira's interruption, but did not shift position. Moira scrambled on her hands and knees until she reached the bars. This had to be a nightmare. A hallucination brought on from injuries during their escape. A drug-induced aberration. _Something!_ This couldn't be happening. She used the bars to haul herself to her feet, her eyes wide with horror.

Nathan gave a brief, irritated sigh and turned far enough so that he could see her correctly. "Woman, you have the absolutely worst timing—"

_"Nathan, for the love of God, what are ye doing?"_ she shouted.

"I don't have time for you now. Cell four, shield down."

A thick Plexiglas plate slid down between Moira and the bars, so fast that she didn't have time to completely pull away. She lost the skin from her knuckles and was certain she'd broken at least two fingers. Blood streaming down the backs of her hands, she stood there, pressed against the glass. Hank's frighteningly distorted howls faded to almost nothing, making the sight of his agonized thrashing as surreal as it was horrible. And Nathaniel was just standing there, watching like it was some damned show. Moira half expected him to start pitching coins.

And then Hank's body began to change. His skin gained a blue tinge, then went completely blue, and finally the blue revealed itself to be shaggy fur, a good half inch long at least. The heavy straps that held him began to tear, like denim stretched too thin.

And Moira remembered that this had happened once before. Hank told her so last year. That after the "Worldwide Migraine", he come back to reality with his seemingly shrunken clothes in tatters, a layer of blue fur covering his body….

She pounded against the Plexiglas shield and screamed Hank's name. She knew it was futile; she had no hope of being heard, let alone breaking through. Blood dripped down her arms and spattered against the clear plate in front of her. The back of her hands were on fire, her fingers felt like they were being squeezed ever tighter in a vice, and she didn't care. She kept pounding, kept screaming, until someone grabbed her from behind.

"He can't hear you!" Isidro shouted over her cries, his voice ragged and uneven. "He can't! Don't wreck your hands like this!"

_"Ya bowffing sasunnach! Yah basturt! Yah hoor!" _she screamed at the top of her lungs, her brogue too thick for Isidro to understand. She struggled wildly against him, her invective aimed squarely at Nathaniel. _"Mon thenyeh fuckin erse!"_

Nathaniel glanced back in the direction of Moira's cell without shifting his body. She must have been screeching like a proverbial harpy to be heard past the shielding. And from what little he made out between Henry's screams, the words were _most_ unladylike.

"Going back to our lowland roots, are we, Moira?" he mumbled, turning his attention back to Hank. "Typical Scot; resorts to barbaric and infantile behavior at the least provocation."

Four of the straps were tearing, and the one over Hank's chest had completely snapped. Just the force of McCoy's rapid growth alone was enough to strain them. He may well break through all of his restraints, shoulder wound or not. Those subcutaneous sensors he put in should be recording all the biological changes by now, even if a few might be crushed by Henry's rapid muscle expansion. Nathan knew he probably should be back at the computer banks, watching the data stream, but he just couldn't pull away from this. It was one thing to see simulations, or even live data feeds. It simply didn't compare with watching the results in person.

Now each strap was showing signs of strain, and Henry's huge claw like hands were getting closer and closer to freedom. Nathan stepped back just beyond the bars. He'd best be prudent.

"Mister Dukes, I would appreciate your presence now, if you don't mind," he called.

"I wuz wonderin' when you'd want me in there," Duke's thick, gruff voice grunted.

Hank's hands were now free. The rest would follow soon.

"Cell three, shield down," Nathan said.

The Plexiglas shield slid down in front of the bars to Henry's cell, and the previously noisy hall was now almost silent again. If Nathaniel listened closely, he could still hear Isidro trying to calm Moira down, and Moira hurling invectives that would be better suited to a back-alley thug than a scientist. And, of course, there was Henry, but he wasn't so much screaming now as he was howling in anger. With all sound so muffled, it was easy to hear Fred Dukes as he entered the corridor a few seconds later.

Moira and Isidro silenced as a mountain of flesh lumbered into view. In all their life, neither had see anyone both so fat _and_ so tall. Fred Dukes was a humongous monster of a man, the kind of person that sideshows of yesteryear would have exploited next to the "ape girl" and the three-headed cow from Pittsburgh. He stood over seven feet tall, but it was hard to get a good sense of perspective from someone with legs literally the size of tree trunks and a waist of well past 70". He wore something similar to an American varsity wrestler's uniform, which left his arms and legs free. His rolls of fat should have been jiggling with each step, but they didn't. Every part of him, every inch of skin, was as dense and unmoving as a lump of iron.

"Ol' Hank busted them straps yet?" he asked, looking over Nathaniel's head.

"Most of them," Nathaniel replied. "I think he'll be out of the rest soon."

By now, Hank was utterly unrecognizable. His already massive frame had grown heavier still, with even more muscles piled on top of those he already possessed. Underneath all that hair, his facial structure became more simian, and his teeth grew impressively thick, sharp incisors and bicuspids. His feet had grown much wider, with toes twice their original length, and his arms had lengthened so far that he could touch his knee without bending over.

And despite all this, Fred Dukes had him out-sized and out-massed. Fred grinned as he watched Henry rip out of the last of the straps and bounce from wall to wall in the confined cell, like an angry silverback. He hurled himself at the shielding full force. The Plexiglas vibrated, but it withstood the blow without chipping.

"Hey, I saw it move a little!" Fred laughed, pointing. "He's pretty strong!"

"And that shoulder must have been reconstructed along with the rest of his body," Nathanial mumbled to himself. "There's no signs of weakness or pain…."

Hank sprang off the bed, then the rear wall, and then feet first into the shield again. This time a hairline fissure appeared.

"All right, that's quite enough," Nathan stated. "Mister Dukes, I want him quieted down. He's not to be killed nor paralyzed. He still needs to be in halfway decent form."

Fred cracked his knuckles. "No spinals. Gotcha, Mister Sinister."

Nathaniel moved out of the way and Fred stepped up, his massive bulk taking up almost the entire entryway. He crouched down, grinning further as the foaming creature rebounded once again off the steadily cracking shield. He motioned with his fingertips for Hank to come forward.

"Come on, buddy," he taunted. "Come on. I got something for ya right here…."

"Are you prepared, Mister Dukes?" Nathaniel called from around the corner.

"Oh, yeah, I'm ready."

The bars and the cracked shield shot up with the same impressive speed. The thing that was once Hank McCoy leapt at Fred Dukes and wrapped himself around the massive man's neck and shoulders, biting and clawing with all he had.

"Hey! Watch the face, furball!" Dukes yelled.

Before Moira and Isidro's eyes, the mountainous pile of flesh grabbed Hank and slammed him into the cement floor, which spider webbed underneath them. Then he slammed Henry into the left wall, then the right, then finally tossed him into the far left corner. He left dents in the steel walls each time, and bits of the gray cement still clung to Hank's fur from the first blow. Finally he ripped the combined examination table and bed off of its stand, a stand that resembled hydraulic lifters found in a garage, and awkwardly used it to bludgeon Hank into submission. He finished his little attitude adjustment session by pinning Hank under the padded portion of the bed and pressing him into the already fractured floor.

"Nighty-night, Hanky," Fred panted, his grin as wide as ever.

Hank struggled for a bit, which encouraged Fred to push harder. Crumbled bits of foam leaked from the ripped vinyl and stuck to Hank's blue coat. In time, Hank stopped moving altogether. Fred eased up on the smothering pressure, then removed the implement for a good look at his victim. Too bad he couldn't see any swelling or bruises under any of the fur. Animals were like that. You could never tell. He kicked Henry in the stomach. Henry grunted, curled up a little, but not enough for him to have been fully conscious.

"Hey, guess you weren't faking, were ya?" Fred asked as he stepped back. "You're strong, fella. Give you that much. Stronger'n anyone else Sinister made here. But you ain't as strong as me. No one is. So if you still got a brain in there, you better remember that, or I'm gonna be back here again. Got it?" He backed out of the cell, still holding his improvised weapon, and called, "Okay, I'm done! Close up shop!"

The bars and shield slid down and locked into place. Nathaniel walked out with a small plastic box in his hand and viewed the wrecked cell with some dismay.

He pointed to the examination table in Fred's grasp. "Was that truly necessary? Those are expensive."

"He'd already warped it pretty bad by the time I got there. And all those rips in the vinyl were from him. I just finished the job." Fred rubbed his eye and cursed softly. "Little shit clawed me in the eye. I'm gonna have a shiner now. I hate it when I get stuff in my eye like that."

Nathan sighed and looked back in the cell. Dented walls, shattered floor, and irregular daggers of metal poking up where the bed had been. This was no place to hold a subject for viewing.

"So you've pacified him well, Mister Dukes?" he asked.

"He's KOed, if that's what you mean."

"Then I want him moved to cell one. Cell three will be closed for the duration."

Fred looked down at him while he rubbed his aching eye. "What, across from the nutcase? Thought you didn't want nobody in that one."

"I think the isolation stress tests have run their course for Richard Martin. Perhaps introducing Henry across the way might trigger something else useful in him."

Moira watched the conversation closely.

"They're sayin' somethin'," Moira muttered. "Somethin' about movin' him...."

"You can _hear_ that?" Isidro asked.

"Nae, I read lips. Lost me hearin' for a while as a bairn…." She never took her eyes off of Nathan and his huge henchman. "They said somethin' about isolation tests …. And I think that's a name…."

Both bars and shield slid up again, and both Moira and Isidro watched silently as the huge guard dragged Henry out of the cell. He slung him under one arm and trundled off to the right, back the way he came.

"Jesus Cristo, tell me he's still breathing," Isidro whispered.

"Isidro?" Moira asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"I think there's someone in the cell next to us."

Neither one said anything. The idea that Nathan had other toys to play with didn't surprise them, but it horrified just the same. For his part, Nathan opened up the small box he'd been holding and removed a pair of sterile gloves. After donning them, he pulled forth a series of evidence gathering paraphernalia. Apparently, not a drop of Hank's blood, nor a strand of his hair, was going to go to waste.

TBC...


	8. Alliances

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 7**

It didn't take Scott too long to find Katherine Pryde. She wasn't with the students, and she wasn't in the hanger bay, so that left one other likely spot. Sure enough, she was in the danger room, alone. A quick glance at the control panel let Scott know he didn't have to chew her out for indiscretion. The program was just an exercise run, a setup of forcefields at varying frequencies. The worst she injuries she could sustain would be from running full-tilt into a wall.

Scott watched her from the darkened observation booth for a bit. She was in her old dancing leotards, and she wore a less-than-perfect French braid. It was rather sloppily done, probably braided without help and in haste, but it served its purpose: keeping her hair out of her face. A line of ten forcefields stood in front of her, each one ten feet apart, each one a different color and frequency. She crouched in front of them, a runner ready to bolt into action.

"Start!" she shouted.

The automatic timer began as Kate sprang forward. The first three forcefields didn't seem to exist for her, the fourth she had to push through, the fifth didn't exist. The sixth one stopped her cold, however, and it took five seconds of straining to bypass. She collapsed to her knees, swearing, between it and the seventh wall.

Scott turned on the mike and asked, "You're not going to bother with the next three?"

She looked up, startled, while Scott turned on the main light in the control booth.

"I didn't know you were up there," she panted.

"That's not an answer, Kitty. You got all the way through the sixth field in record time, and then you stopped. Why?"

She looked away, silent. Scott left the observation booth and made his way down into the danger room itself. By then Kitty was sitting on a nearby chair. Every inch of her body screamed frustration, even if she didn't say a word herself.

"You really wanted to go with the team, didn't you?" he asked softly.

She winced before turning meekly to face Scott. "You saw me?"

"My vision's not _that_ bad. It was a nice idea to crouch so low to the ground in the hallway, but I was looking down at the time." He knelt in front of her chair. "You've only had a few hours of sleep. Are you sure you don't want to rest instead?"

"I _should_ be on that jet. I _should_ be going with them."

_You and me both_, he thought. Aloud, "I know. It's hard to wait here. But I'm glad you didn't try to sneak onboard."

"I could have. I could have gotten in one of the holds, and even Logan wouldn't have known. No one would have known until I got out at the end. I could've done it."

"If you're so sure of that, why didn't you?"

"I made a promise," she whispered.

"Good to see you're taking your parent's concerns seriously."

"Not _them_. Dad'd be proud of me. He's been facing down the Klan all his life, and it didn't even matter when they tried to firebomb the house. He never backed down."

_That's a lot different than putting your daughter into the line of fire alone..._ "Then who did you make the promise to, Kate?"

She gave a trembling sigh. "I promised Rosa, okay? She was really scared one of the amp suits would come for her, and I told her I'd protect her, all right?" She looked down at the floor. "She was so scared. She looked at me like I was her only hope. I couldn't... I just couldn't leave her like that when I promised her I'd protect her."

Scott had difficulty swallowing. For once, he was glad that his eyes were perpetually hidden behind his ruby shades.

He cleared his suddenly constricted throat. "Well, if you're going to do that, you could probably do with a combat simulation instead of just an obstacle course."

Kate's jaw dropped. "You'd do that for me?"

"Marie's taking care of monitors right now, and it's taking all of the Professor's concentration to contact Isidro. I've got some time on my hands. Unless you're tired."

"No way! I don't get one of these solo ones very often."

Scott nodded and left without a word. Outside, in the hall, his vision blurred for a second, before this glasses misted inside, then cleared under the constant bombardment_. I just couldn't leave her like that when I promised her I'd protect her..._

He ground his teeth and jogged up to the observation booth.

:

The Blackbird pushed the envelope of space as it silently screamed along at mach 3. Kurt gripped the yoke tightly as he watched the soft red glow of the Blackbird's nose. He had only simulated supersonic flight a few times, and this was his first real-world experience. In fact, the only ones who were familiar with supersonic flight were Ororo and Piotr, and only she had been "behind the wheel".

"What's that sound?" Kurt asked. "That sizzling? Is that normal?"

Ororo nodded. "Perfectly normal. It's just ionizing air."

Kurt slowly let go of the yoke as he turned around. It was a relief to see that he wasn't the only one nervous about this. The rest of the Xmen were slowly letting go their collectively held breath.

"It's nerve-wracking the first time out," she called back. "You get used to it after a few flights."

"I thought the place was going to shake itself apart for a while, there," Logan muttered as he unhooked his belt.

"Just think how bad it must have been for Yeager the first time. That little turbulence was nothing."

Kurt turned back to the controls. "The simulator was certainly accurate about that shaking. I thought Scott was just giving me a hard time back there."

"Well, he might have been a little overboard on the shaking," she conceded. "But from here on out, it's smooth as silk."

"So now we just wait and watch the controls?"

"That's about right. And wait for that 'phone call'."

"I hope the Prof can get ahold of him," Logan said. "We find more of those amp suits, we'll need all the help we can get."

"I just wish I knew Mr. Cassidy better," Ororo said. "It's not easy fighting alongside of a man you've never trained with."

"Yeah, well, if his daughter's any indication, he's not designed for stealth," Bobby grunted as he stretched.

Logan unbuckled his seatbelt. "He'll make a damn fine distraction, though."

"Speaking of distracting, what was with all the door slamming back there?" Bobby asked. Logan gave him a curious look, and he clarified, "Before we took off, you were checking all the compartments down to the fridge. What was that all about?"

Logan turned away, and replied in his characteristic, almost unintelligible mumble, "Lookin' for stowaways."

"Stowaways?" Kurt asked.

"Someone who hides on a --"

"I know what the word means," Kurt interrupted, somewhat testily. "But what makes you want to look this time?"

"Caught Kitty's scent in the hall outside the study. She was listening in. Thought she might try gettin' onboard."

"How much do you think she heard?" Ororo asked.

"Don't know, but she was tired and pissed off. She might've tried tagging along." For no apparent reason, he came up front to the cockpit and looked out at the darkened sky. "Just didn't want to take the chance she might do it."

"Why didn't you tell us beforehand?" she asked softly.

He glanced back down at her before moving back to the main cabin. "Kid doesn't deserve to be embarrassed in front of everyone like that. 'Specially since I was wrong."

A soft chime issued from the control panel, prompting Logan to turn about in mid-step. The chime was immediately followed by a softly accented, Irish, baritone voice.

"This is the Banshee."

Ororo replied, "Banshee, this is Storm. It's good to hear from you."

"Same here. I'm glad this thing worked. Haven't used it in donkey's years." His voice held the last bits of sleepiness. "All right, Cyc told me about the kidnappin', but he didn't give all the bits like where we're goin'."

Logan stepped back up to the cockpit and leaned on the back of Ororo's seat, watching flight controls that he barely understood.

"Believe it or not, we're still narrowing down the 'where'," she said.

"You're kiddin' me."

"I'm not. We know it's in your area, but that's about it."

"Jays, Storm, I thought Cerebro could get better than that."

"The Professor's not using it."

"Well, why the hell not?"

"Because it's not doing the job, Banshee. It's like everyone involved just dropped off the face of the world so far as Cerebro's concerned. He's doing it the old fashioned way."

Banshee paused. "That could take days."

"Not according to him Not in this circumstance."

He hesitated again. "All right, so that's solved, but... Look, are ye _absolutely sure_ it was Nathan?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because if he's really the one behind all this, we'd better pray he's doin' it in some super-secret facility even the Royals don't know about. The hoor's melt has big contracts with the British government, and ye can imagine what would happen if we got caught at one o' those installations."

"It means I want the flowers and the chocolate to go with this," Logan growled.

:

Moira stared at Isidro. Did he say what she thought he did? His lips moved just enough to follow his words, but the motion was subtle enough she might be misreading him.

_It's Xavier_, Isidro continued silently.

Moira quickly scanned the room and what she could see of the hallway. She knew Nathan wasn't stupid enough to leave them without monitors. Unfortunately, he was also smart enough to have them well concealed: she couldn't tell what angle they were being monitored from. She looked back at the withered hand that clutched hers.

She fumbled for some way to disengage from Martin without giving Nathan more information. "Martin, I... I need to do something."

Martin's hand let hers go. She scuttled back to Isidro, who tracked her approach with disturbing slowness. She put her face right next to his ear, and cupped her hands around her lips to discourage lip reading.

"Charles, is that you?" she whispered.

She immediately put her ear in front of Isidro's mouth to catch any sound. Faintly, he responded, "Yes."

She went back and forth as she spoke with "Isidro", doing everything she could to hide their conversation from prying cameras.

"How long until ye get here?" she asked.

"Not long now. They have Sean with them."

"Charles, for the love of God, be careful. We aren't the only ones here. I dinna know how many else, but there's at least one more prisoner here besides us, and he's in frightful shape. There may even be another guard besides that walkin' blob."

"I had the feeling that was the case. We've sent all that we can." Isidro blinked, then closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Moira, I can't keep this up for long. I have to conserve strength. I'll... listen in..."

Isidro's breath released in a sigh, his head lolled to one side, and he seemed to have fallen asleep. After two seconds his whole body jerked awake with a startled cry, his eyes wide, his arms flailing out for balance. Moira grabbed him and held him against the wall. He immediately grabbed her forearms and clung.

"Say nothing," she hissed. "Say absolutely _nothing_."

Isidro made a quick visual check of the walls and corners of their cell, then looked to her and nodded. He closed his eyes and let go of Moira, his breathing slowing from frantic hyperventilation to something more sustainable.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered.

"How much do ye remember? Did ye talk with Charles first?" she whispered into his ear.

He swallowed and nodded, speaking only when she cupped her hands around his face and leaned in. "Yeah. He warned me. It's just... Dammit, that felt like being in the suit. Jesus, that was close. I don't like being pushed back like that."

Moira pulled away as he rubbed his face. They both looked back at the cell bars, where Martin's limp arm still rested. Isidro flexed his fingers a bit, then stood and moved over to that arm.

"Hey, fella, you gonna be okay over there?" he asked.

The arm moved a bit in response, groping for the person behind the voice. Isidro grabbed Martin's hand.

Martin's voice was still choked with emotion. "Gonna be fine. Just fine. Ain't nothin' more they can do to me, now. It don't matter none. They ain't gettin' the juice. They ain't doin' it again. That's all what matters."

Martin said words to that effect over and over again, his own personal mantra. It must have worked, because his grip grew more sure and less desperate, his voice more even.

That was, until their guard's voice called from down the hall.

"Hey! Nutcase! Pipe down in there! We gotta phone call!" Fred shouted.

Martin started to giggle. "What'cha gonna do about it, tubbo? Rip off'n my arm? That'll cheese off the boss right good, now, won't it?"

Fred's footsteps echoed down the hall as he walked closer, but the accompanying tremors were far more intimidating. He lumbered to down to Martin's cell and glared in at the man.

"I'm not kidding, buddy," he snarled. "You shut the fuck up and stick that arm back in there before I lose my temper."

Martin let go of Isidro's hand and pulled his arm out of their cell... then gave Fred the finger. Fred swore again, loudly, but seemed very reluctant to follow through on his implied threats.

"Mister Dukes, if you have to break his arm, that's quite all right, but I don't want any bleeding," Nathaniel's voice called from somewhere.

Fred looked back and forth, down the hall, at Martin, down the hall again. He then grabbed Martin's arm and pushed it back into his cell, taking care to stay in contact with the man as little as possible. Fred pounded once on the bars to Martin's cell, probably to intimidate, but no matter how much he tried to impress Martin, it seemed to have little effect. The caged man kept laughing.

"If any of your crazy rubs off on me, I'm gonna make your head into a canoe, buddy!" Fred shouted as he wiped his hand on his clothing.

He moved back down the hallway without sparing a glance into any of the other cells. His stream of grumbled profanity was cut off abruptly when that soundproof shield slid back into place. He quit the scene as quickly as he arrived, leaving Moira and Isidro to wonder just who Nathaniel could be talking to.

:

As far as Harold Trask was concerned, his workroom was a wreck. An absolute disaster area, with loose wiring, test equipment, and "everything else" lying around. The fact that the place was a Class 10,000 cleanroom made no difference. The fact that every wire, every chip, every tool was in its proper place made no difference. The tools were mis-aligned at least three degrees off kilter. The chairs were out of place. The boxes of EPROM's were incorrectly stacked. It wasn't perfect. Therefore it was a mess. This whole business with FOH had him so agitated that he couldn't even keep his own lab up to his demanding specifications. And so he was alone in his own cleanroom, in the dead of night, trying to make things livable.

The more he tried to straighten the place up, the worse it seemed to get. His hands shook with anger, his face burned so hot that it was a miracle he didn't fog up the enclosed cleansuit faceplate (anyone who actually stooped to the term "bunny suit" was immediately removed from his presence). Everything he touched reminded him that he was effectively trapped there, in that cleanroom. Never to lead the troops outside again. All control of FOH, an organization that **he** founded, was slipping away from his grasp.

The Westchester attack was sound! The units were parked outside of the mansion's sensors, the government's spy satellites were elsewhere, and it was the dead of night! Everyone should have been asleep! Even that blue monstrosity should have been asleep, dammit! There was no reason for it to be awake at that hour, let alone in the _exact_ position to see the missile racks! It _should_ have worked! If it had, the entire training camp would have been destroyed! Why didn't anyone understand the importance of that?

_Damn Graydon! _he thought, slamming his fists on the counter_. It's all about the politics and funding to him! All he talks about is how much this costs, how much that costs, we have to work slowly... This is a war, dammit! The costs of inaction are far worse!_

Stryker's legacy would fall to dust if something wasn't done. No one understood how lethal the Xmen were. Not that arrogant pig, Nathaniel, not that _greedy_ pig, Graydon. You didn't just leave terrorist nests alone like that. You eliminated them! It _had_ to be done! Yet here he sat, completely isolated from all tactical decisions. His precious Sentinel project was no longer his to command.

He mumbled "damn you, Graydon" over and over, not completely aware of his own words. Graydon. Charismatic, smooth, the ultimate manipulator. He must be a mole, a mutant sympathizer sent to destroy FOH. He might even be Mystique in disguise...

His sudden epiphany froze him in his tracks. Yes. Of course. Graydon _had_ to be her. Anyone who let the enemy survive was a traitor. Graydon paid lip service to the cause, but held it back every way he could. _That's_ where Mystique went. _That's_ why she hasn't been seen anywhere...

He sat back on a nearby stool. Everything made all too much sense now. Mystique and the Oval Office Assassin both could go anywhere they wanted unseen and unchecked. They could have met at any time with no one the wiser. "Graydon" must have found out about Harold's intended attack on the institute, and gone to warn the mutants ahead of time. That's the only way the blue freakish thing would have discovered them. The _only_ way. If Harold was going to save FOH... if he was going to save humanity itself... Mystique had to be eliminated.

"Graydon" had to go.

He abruptly got up and left the cleanroom. No one else in FOH knew the truth, and if he attacked without proof, the results could be disastrous for the cause. He had to catch the bitch in the act, or at least make the effort. He ran through the possibilities as he stripped off the tyvek suit in the airlock/changing room. Satellite? Good, but took a long time to reposition. He'd work on it. Wiretap of her personal phones? It wouldn't show her face, and her voice was as malleable as any other part of her... but it was immediate and simple to do, and she might blurt out something incriminating. Personal surveillance? Possible, but who could he trust? How far had the "contamination" spread down FOH? How many sympathizers had crawled in under her wing? Worse, how many _mutants_ could be there? That x-gene blood test suddenly didn't seem all that certain anymore, what with "Graydon's" authority to hide any inconvenient results. One telepath and the whole thing could be blown. No, he'd have to stick with remote surveillance for now, until he found someone he could trust to plant the bugs.

He tossed everything into the garbage and left the airlock. Wiretaps first. He could then monitor the phone lines as he programmed the satellite into position. He walked briskly to his secondary lab.

_You tipped your hand too early in sealing me off, Mystique_, he thought. _That's going to cost your and your kind dearly._


	9. Cracks in the Armor

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 8**

Most of the institute was gathered in the rec room, watching that gigantic television set. What had been rapt, silent attention at first had now turned to quiet commentary and grumbling among the students. News of the "giant robot" attack was still hot, but there was nothing new to report. What little hard data the broadcasters had was padded with layers of commentary and supposition, and this journalistic popcorn was growing mighty stale.

Jubilee: "Dude, with the teachers gone, I swear they're gonna come here again."

Regis: "They aren't all gone. The Prof's still here, and so is Mr. Summers."

Theresa: "Ms. Munroe said they must have taken down 50 of those suits. How many more could they have? Those things have to cost a lot."

Flea: "We got the alarm system upgraded, right? They won't get close enough to do that again, right?"

Jubilee: "Assuming they don't teleport here. Then we won't get any warning at all."

Regis: "If they could do that so easy, why did they keep coming after us in trucks? There's _gotta_ be a reason they don't teleport a lot."

Rhane: "I say we do our own patrols. That way we'll fill in the holes the cameras miss."

The muttered conversation stopped. Everyone turned to look at Rhane, who was glaring at the TV as if it was Nathaniel himself. Then, in silence, they looked at each other.

"Scott's gonna shit bricks over this," Jubilee whispered, though her grin made it look like she was less than worried about possible consequences.

Judy shrank back into the overstuffed leather sofa. "You've gotta be kidding. Didn't you see the guns on those things? Didn't you hear Mr. Summers talk about how hard it was to take them down?"

"You're such a Goddamn princess, Judy," Jubilee sneered as she stood up.

Judy's face reddened. "Easy for you to say, Miss Sparkler USA! You can burn holes in stuff! I can't! All I do is shape it!"

"You're a _spoiled princess_, Judy! You're always screaming and running away! Maybe you aughta do something useful instead of using us as armor!"

"Oh, yeah, I guess standing up to Stryker's guys got you someplace, didn't it? All the way to Alkali Lake!"

Jubilee went for Judy. Jamie deliberately bashed his elbow against the wood of the couch, and immediately four of him were between the two girls. Energy crackled around Jubilee as she hurled insults past the wall of Jamies. At that moment, Rogue appeared at the doorway, in uniform.

"_Hey!"_ she barked. _"Knock it off!" _When Jubilee silenced, Rogue added, "Y'all want to sit around bitchin' an moanin', or do somethin' useful? What's it gonna be?"

"Like the princess here could be useful in a fight," Jubilee mumbled, glaring back at Judy.

Suddenly Rogue was inches away from Jubilee, pointing a gloved finger right between her eyes. "_That_ ain't useful at all, Jubes."

Startled, Jubilee stumbled back and almost tripped. She and Rogue were close in size, but something about Rogue's attitude made her seem twice as tall that moment. She watched the "Xkid" with sullen respect.

Rogue addressed everyone. "Just because I don't slice and dice like Logan don't mean I ain't had some experience with those things. I've seen what they do first hand." She shuddered involuntarily, and her voice dropped in volume. "And second hand."

She quickly scooped up the remote control and turned off the TV. "In any case, it ain't gonna do us a lick of good to bitch at each other. So I'm askin' again; you want to defend this place or not?"

For several seconds, no one dared move or speak. Shocked silence descended on the room.

"Mr. Summers is really gonna let us go out and do something like that?" John asked nervously.

Rogue glanced over her shoulder, and her voice lowered in volume again. "Well... let's just say I'd rather beg forgiveness than ask permission. He ain't told me 'no', and he's workin' with Kitty on a training sequence for somethin' like this in the danger room, so that looks a lot like 'yes' to me."

"Wh...what about the rest of us?" Judy whispered, giving apprehensive glances Jubilee's way. "Professor always told us to run instead."

The students divided into camps of anticipation and apprehension. Rogue had no illusions about what they must have been thinking. No one could forget being woken at 2am by Syryn's scream, and then the terror of running for their life from Stryker's commandos. And then it seemed to happen again just a couple months ago, though this time the assault never breached the institute's gates. She stood in front of the gray TV screen.

"Look, we've all been through having this place attacked. Y'all with me on this one? Ain't no way you can put up a good defense when you're woken up outa a sound sleep, all in your rooms, all disoriented like that. But we weren't prepared then. We weren't ready for it. This time, if someone thinks they can take advantage of the rest of the Xmen being away... we're gonna be ready." She crossed her arms and planted her feet. "We're gonna defend our home."

:

"We're not landing?" Logan repeated with disbelief.

"Sean doesn't need for us to land," Ororo told him. "Just to slow down a little."

Kurt gave a snort of laughter. "That's the first time I ever heard of a thousand miles per hour referred to as 'a little'."

"We needed to drop out of mach anyway," she continued. "We won't lose much time at all. Kurt, could you open that third compartment down to your left? We're going to be needing those badly."

Kurt opened the indicated pop-out drawer and looked in. He saw a mass of pink plastic bits, glaringly bright against the navy blue interior: industrial grade earplugs. He grabbed a good-sized handful and took them back to the rest of the cabin.

"In the event that a screaming Irishman should enter the cockpit, take two of these and plug your ears completely," he said. "In the even of premature ramp lowering, check to see if ground is attached before exiting this aircraft."

"And remember that premature ramp lowering happens to everybody sometime in their life," Logan mumbled as he took a pair of earplugs.

Kurt lightly cuffed Logan on the side of the head as he passed by, continuing to hand out earplugs, and continuing his speech in that blandly pleasant manner so familiar to flight attendants throughout the world. "It is advised that you fasten your seatbelts, as I only rescue pretty girls when they are sucked out of an aircraft. The rest of you will just be laughed at."

Ororo couldn't help looking out of the cockpit as she searched for Sean. She knew she'd find him through the transponder, not with her eyes. Besides that it was pitch black, with no moon. But her instincts kept telling her to look up, to watch for his presence. Kurt would be back in his seat by the time Sean finally showed up on their sensors.

"Everyone strapped in? I'm lowering the ramp!" she warned.

A quick glance showed her three thumbs up, so she overrode the controls and opened the ramp in mid-air. Kurt turned around in his seat and clung as the hole opened up in the floor. They were only up a few hundred feet by then, speeding along at less than 100 MPH over the Irish Sea, but there was still a lot of noise from the wind, to say nothing of the chill. For a second or two there was just the sound of the wind buffeting against the ramp, then everyone heard a clear, tri-toned, dissonant set of pitches that didn't quite deserve to be called a chord. It quickly increased in volume, like someone managed to plug a random set up tuning forks into an amplifier. It was just getting up to the point of discomfort when it abruptly stopped. There was no Sean.

What had gone wrong? Kurt teleported to the edge of the ramp, gripping to the floor with both hands and feet, and looked down. On the ramp clung a man in a bomber jacket, slowly making his way up the steps. Every inch of his body was covered, right down to the goggles and old-style leather aviator cap. Kurt leaned over the ramp, grabbed the man by his shoulders, and pulled him in.

Ororo closed the ramp after the two men were clear, then demanded, "Sean, why didn't you fly in the rest of the way?"

"And burst everyone's eardrums?" Sean asked back. "That'd be a fine way to start this off."

He pulled down his protective mask and raised his goggles as he spoke. Despite what must have been a dreadful wind chill factor, his face remained pink with warmth, though he was panting a bit.

"I would've made it just fine," he went on. "But it was nice to have the a--" He turned to Kurt for the first time and stopped in mid sentence. After an awkward heartbeat, he finished, "Assist. I'm sorry. I shouldn't've stopped like that."

Kurt pulled the plugs out of his ears and smiled. "That's all right. Everyone does that the first time."

Sean was pushing 50. His face was weathered, his vibrant red hair just beginning to gray, and as he removed his gloves all saw that his hands were spotting with age. In this case the years only made him more dangerous, and more valuable. He slapped his gloves in one hand and looked about the rest of the cabin.

"Right, then! Has the Professor got us some more precise coordinates?"

"They just came through a few minutes ago," Ororo said. "Give me a moment to pull up to a better altitude."

The Blackbird's nose tilted up, and while Kurt casually stood where he was, Sean hastily sat down before he risked losing his footing. He wound up sitting right behind Logan.

"Read your file on the way here," Logan said quietly. "One question; you made any 'long term' enemies with the Brits?"

"Just the tangerines," Sean answered just as softly. "And they consider carrots traitors for havin' greens."

"So you're not marked?"

"Shouldn't be. Sinn Féingot everyone a good deal, they did."

The jet soon leveled out, and Ororo called up a quick holographic map of the area in question.

There was one good thing about Nathaniel's technological abattoir: it was in a rural environment. In fact, it was in the middle of some farmland, with acres of rye spreading out in all directions. Security was apparently light to non-existent, with a basic chain link fence around the perimeter and a single asphalt road in and out. The building was relatively small, with no obvious power or phone lines above ground.

"It's listed as an agricultural lab," Ororo stated without turning around. "Considering how many patents he has on seed stocks and low-impact pesticides, it could be a legitimate lab on the surface."

"It's hard to get a sense of scale," Bobby said. "How big is that place?"

"Judging by the fields, it could be as big as the school," Piotr answered. He pointed to a spot on the building. "Here is where trucks would pick up and deliver. If they are using those mobile torture labs, they could change them here and no one would know." He pulled his hand back and rubbed his chin in thought. "I worry about those fields the most. With all that rye growing, it could hide a great deal."

"Like a suit?"

"If the rye is tall enough, and the suit laid down flat, then yes, it could. It could easy hide a man. How tall is the grain, Ororo?"

"I wish I could get a current satellite picture, but it looks like there's nothing in range now," she said. "We're pretty sure that Moira and Isidro are stationary, so either they're parked somewhere, or they're in a cell in the building."

"Or under," Logan added. "Basements are easy to hide."

"Power source?" Bobby asked.

"Officially they're connected to the local station, but they're sure to have backups," Ororo answered.

"Well, there's one thing we can count on," Bobby said. "You need a lot of water to grow grain..."

:

One of the best things about working with Graydon Creed was the fact he made himself available at all times. On the rare occasion when Nathaniel had no choice but to wake him up in the middle of the night, Graydon had always been polite and cheerful, qualities that came through even though the voice disguiser. He always made it sound as if he'd been happily anticipating this call. Of course, those same qualities that made Graydon a joy to work with also made him a very dangerous adversary, but Nathaniel would burn that bridge when he came to it. Right now, it was enough to know that his call to the colonies would be answered in short order.

Within seconds, a modulated voice answered, "Good evening, Mister Sinister."

"Good evening to you as well, sir," Nathaniel replied.

"Was your trip as pleasant as planned?"

"Pleasant and profitable. However, I fear we may have a bit of a storm brewing on the horizon. Our favorite Sentinel has made repeated interruptions, and has been taking more and more of my time."

Graydon made a frustrated sigh. Nathaniel could picture him pinching his nasal ridge and contorting his face in a pained grimace. "He has."

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"How many calls has he made?"

"Over the past ten hours, he has called me no less than three times. I hesitate to say this, but I'm beginning to fear for his welfare. He seems to be very anxious."

In the meantime, unbeknownst to either party, a third party was monitoring their conversation. Harold Trask had invited himself in. He sat at his secondary workbench, listening to Nathaniel and Graydon while he plotted orbital trajectories for his satellites.

Graydon: I don't suppose there's anything in particular he's upset about? Anything you could actually change?

_Oh, yes, Mystique, there's a LOT I'm upset about_, Harold thought, clenching his jaw in irritation. _And you'd be amazed about how much of it centers around you._

Nathaniel: Well, not really. He seems to be growing more and more concerned about his lack of field control.

Graydon: In that case, you're not the only one. He's taken to spamming everyone in the organization, right down to the janitors. If anything, he's just proving why we made the decision we did.

_After all, we can't have someone with FOH's actual welfare making tactical decisions, can we, mutant bitch?_

Nathaniel: It's good to see I'm not alone, but the question is what can we do about it?

Graydon: Well, I've warned him against this sort of action several times. I just sent an ultimatum to him yesterday, and he seems content to ignore me.

_That's because you're not in charge! I AM! I wouldn't bow to another human on this, let alone a freak like you!_

Graydon: His technical expertise is almost as valuable as yours, Mister Sinister, but his obsessive paranoia is about to make him a liability. I think our best bet is to quietly ignore him, but make it look like he's still part of the process. That way we can keep him happy without everyone playing babysitter.

Nathaniel: That requires the cooperation of the entire board. Is that a possibility?

Graydon: More than a possibility. We've been in agreement on it since the disaster. If it came down to it, that's what would be done. Now it's come down to it. If _you_ can't work with him, then this is our only recourse. And to tell the truth, I'm kind of relieved. He could portray a bad image, if someone ever photographs him during one of his tantrums.

_Tantrums! Is that what they called the defense of the human race? A tantrum?_ He banged on his keyboard, hitting so many keys at one time that an error screen popped up. Dammit! He entered the text again. He was _going_ to get access to that satellite. He was _going_ to watch Nathaniel's little testing lab like a proverbial hawk. Because if Nathan was going to turn against him, he needed monitoring almost as much as Mystique herself.

Nathaniel: A liaison is still needed. Do you have anyone in mind?

Graydon: Actually, I have _several_ prospects. In the meantime, don't worry about him. Feel free to "screen your calls", or disconnect that line entirely if you'd prefer.

Nathaniel: Disconnecting sounds like an excellent idea. Now I'll actually be able to get some work--...

Harold looked at the speaker, surprised by the sudden quiet spot.

Graydon: Is something wrong, sir?

Nathaniel: I'm not sure... hold on for a moment...

Harold sat waiting with annoyance. The speaker was quiescent, and the computer was updating. Long seconds passed in silence as he watched the progress bar.

Nathaniel: I'm afraid I'll have to speak with you another time, my friend. I have to tend to things here.

Graydon: All right, then, sir. Good evening.

Nathaniel: Good evening.

Harold crossed his arms and tapped impatiently on his elbows as he waited for the screen to clear and refresh. Finally, he saw a light-enhanced view of some British countryside or another. (He could never remember the exact address off the top of his head.) Harold zoomed in on a few key spots. Had more mutants been delivered recently? Probably not: the loading dock was clear, there were neither rigs nor trailers parked outside, the lights were off, and Nathan probably had his hands full dealing with Hank McCoy down below. He pulled back to check for other possible contact points. Maybe someone had pulled up to the front door instead of the loading dock.

_And maybe the Xmen themselves might be attacking, drawn in by Henry's presence despite the 'Cerebro scruffs',_ Harold thought as he checked the perimeter. _You should never trust unproven technology, Nathan. Never._

He skimmed past fields of grain, their stalks gently swaying with the night breezes, then headed to the edge of the property. Where he found a large black aircraft parked by the fence. A large, distinctly military, distinctly stealthy craft, with no civilian applications whatsoever...

"I have to tend to things here"? That was a mild term for it! The Xmen were launching an assault! Good Lord, Harold was _right_! He _knew_ something like that was going to happen the second they insisted on keeping Hank alive! That idiot, Nathan! He'd sealed his own doom!

Harold checked around the sleek jet, then the darkened building, but saw neither motion nor light. And even if he wanted to save Nathaniel's arrogant British hide, there wasn't anything he could do about it from here.

Wait...

Yes...

Yes, there _was_ something he could do. Because if the Xmen were all there, taking out Nathaniel, it meant the institute's protectors were occupied as well. Oh, the might have left a token force, but if only three of Xavier's battle-hardened abominations had left the terrorist's camp, it meant there weren't enough left to stop him.

His thoughts raced with the possibilities as he ran to the hanger. FOH hailing him as a hero. Mystique being exposed for what she was. The blood of abominations beneath his feet, cleansing his soul as it nourished the ground. Just the thought of eliminating these threats before they blossomed and claimed innocent human lives sent his heart soaring with excitement and pride.

Stryker went in with normal weapons, searching for extraordinary equipment. This time, Harold Trask would be bringing that "extraordinary equipment" with him.

TBC...


	10. The Gathering Storm

**Editor's Note: **I know, I know: it's been months since I updated, and I apologize for the delay. What can I say? A combination of holiday insanity and writer's block will fell the most ardent, prolific writer....

---------------------

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 9**

Most of the institute was gathered in the rec room, watching that gigantic television set. What had been rapt, silent attention at first had now turned to quiet commentary and grumbling among the stud to do that again, right?"

Jubilee: "Assuming they don't teleport here. Then we won't get any warning at all."

Regis: "If they could do that so easy, why did they keep coming after us in trucks? There's _gotta_ be a reason they don't teleport a lot."

Rhane: "I say we do our own patrols. That way we'll fill in the holes the cameras miss."

The muttered conversation stopped. Everyone turned to look at Rhane, who was glaring at the TV as if it was Nathaniel himself. Then, in silence, they looked at each other.

"Scott's gonna shit bricks over this," Jubilee whispered, though her grin made it look like she was less than worried about possible consequences.

Judy shrank back into the overstuffed leather sofa. "You've gotta be kidding. Didn't you see the guns on those things? Didn't you hear Mr. Summers talk about how hard it was to take them down?"

"You're such a Goddamn princess, Judy," Jubilee sneered as she stood up.

Judy's face reddened. "Easy for you to say, Miss Sparkler USA! You can burn holes in stuff! I can�%9Rhane, who was glaring at the TV as if it was Nathaniel himself. Then, in silence, they looked at each other.

"Scott's gonna shit bricks over this," Jubilee whispered, though her grin made it look like she was less than worried about possible consequences.

Judy shrank back into the overstuffed leather sofa. "You've gotta be kidding. Didn't you see the guns on those things? Didn't you hear Mr. Summers talk about how hard it was to take them down?"

"You're such a Goddamn princess, Judy," Jubilee sneered as she stood up.

Judy's face reddened. "Easy for you to say, Miss Sparkler USA! You can burn holes in stuff! I can't! All I do is shape it!"

"You're a _spoiled princess_, Judy! You're always screaming and running away! Maybe you aughta do something useful instead of using us as armor!"

"Oh, yeah, I guess standing up to Stryker's guys got you someplace, didn't it? All the way to Alkali Lake!"

Jubilee went for Judy. Jamie deliberately bashed his elbow against the wood of the couch, and immediately four of him were between the two girls. Energy crackled around Jubilee as she hurled insults past the wall of Jamies. At that moment, Rogue appeared at the doorway, in uniform.

_"Hey!"_ she barked. _"Knock it off!" _When Jubilee silenced, Rogue added, "Y'all want to sit around bitchin' an moanin', or do somethin' useful? What's it gonna be?"

"Like the princess here could be useful in a fight," Jubilee mumbled, glaring back at Judy.

Suddenly Rogue was inches away from Jubilee, pointing a gloved finger right between her eyes. "_That_ ain't useful at all, Jubes."

Startled, Jubilee stumbled back and almost tripped. She and Rogue were close in size, but something about Rogue's attitude made her seem twice as tall that moment. She watched the "Xkid" with sullen respect.

Rogue addressed everyone. "Just because I don't slice and dice like Logan don't mean I ain't had some experience with those things. I've seen what they do first hand." She shuddered involuntarily, and her voice dropped in volume. "And second hand."

She quickly scooped up the remote control and turned off the TV. "In any case, it ain't gonna do us a lick of good to bitch at each other. So I'm askin' again; you want to defend this place or not?"

For several seconds, no one dared move or speak. Shocked silence descended on the room.

"Mr. Summers is really gonna let us go out and do something like that?" John asked nervously.

Rogue glanced over her shoulder, and her voice lowered in volume again. "Well... let's just say I'd rather beg forgiveness than ask permission. He ain't told me 'no', and he's workin' with Kitty on a training sequence for somethin' like this in the danger room, so that looks a lot like 'yes' to me."

"Wh...what about the rest of us?" Judy whispered, giving apprehensive glances Jubilee's way. "Professor always told us to run instead."

The students divided into camps of anticipation and apprehension. Rogue had no illusions about what they must have been thinking. No one could forget being woken at 2am by Syryn's scream, and then the terror of running for their life from Stryker's commandos. And then it seemed to happen again just a couple months ago, though this time the assault never breached the institute's gates. She stood in front of the gray TV screen.

"Look, we've all been through having this place attacked. Y'all with me on this one? Ain't no way you can put up a good defense when you're woken up outa a sound sleep, all in your rooms, all disoriented like that. But we weren't prepared then. We weren't ready for it. This time, if someone thinks they can take advantage of the rest of the Xmen being away... we're gonna be ready." She crossed her arms and planted her feet. "We're gonna defend our home."

----------------------

"We're not landing?" Logan repeated with disbelief.

"Sean doesn't need for us to land," Ororo told him. "Just to slow down a little."

Kurt gave a snort of laughter. "That's the first time I ever heard of a thousand miles per hour referred to as 'a little'."

"We needed to drop out of mach anyway," she continued. "We won't lose much time at all. Kurt, could you open that third compartment down to your left? We're going to be needing those badly."

Kurt opened the indicated pop-out drawer and looked in. He saw a mass of pink plastic bits, glaringly bright against the navy blue interior: industrial grade earplugs. He grabbed a good-sized handful and took them back to the rest of the cabin.

"In the event that a screaming Irishman should enter the cockpit, take two of these and plug your ears completely," he said. "In the event of premature ramp lowering, check to see if ground is attached before exiting this aircraft."

"And remember that premature ramp lowering happens to everybody sometime in their life," Logan mumbled as he took a pair of earplugs.

Kurt lightly cuffed Logan on the side of the head as he passed by, continuing to hand out earplugs, and continuing his speech in that blandly pleasant manner so familiar to flight attendants throughout the world. "It is advised that you fasten your seatbelts, as I only rescue pretty girls when they are sucked out of an aircraft. The rest of you will just be laughed at."

Ororo couldn't help looking out of the cockpit as she searched for Sean. She knew she'd find him through the transponder, not with her eyes. Besides that it was pitch black, with no moon. But her instincts kept telling her to look up, to watch for his presence. Kurt would be back in his seat by the time Sean finally showed up on their sensors.

"Everyone strapped in? I'm lowering the ramp!" she warned.

A quick glance showed her three thumbs up, so she overrode the controls and opened the ramp in mid-air. Kurt turned around in his seat and clung as the hole opened up in the floor. They were only up a few hundred feet by then, speeding along at less than 100 MPH over the Irish Sea, but there was still a lot of noise from the wind, to say nothing of the chill. For a second or two there was just the sound of the wind buffeting against the ramp, then everyone heard a clear, tri-toned, dissonant set of pitches that didn't quite deserve to be called a chord. It quickly increased in volume, like someone managed to plug a random set up tuning forks into an amplifier. It was just getting up to the point of discomfort when it abruptly stopped. There was no Sean.

What had gone wrong? Kurt teleported to the edge of the ramp, gripping to the floor with both hands and feet, and looked down. On the ramp clung a man in a bomber jacket, slowly making his way up the steps. Every inch of his body was covered, right down to the goggles and old-style leather aviator cap. Kurt leaned over the ramp, grabbed the man by his shoulders, and pulled him in.

Ororo closed the ramp after the two men were clear, then demanded, "Sean, why didn't you fly in the rest of the way?"

"And burst everyone's eardrums?" Sean asked back. "That'd be a fine way to start this off."

He pulled down his protective mask and raised his goggles as he spoke. Despite what must have been a dreadful wind chill factor, his face remained pink with warmth, though he was panting a bit.

"I would've made it just fine," he went on. "But it was nice to have the a--" He turned to Kurt for the first time and stopped in mid sentence. After an awkward heartbeat, he finished, "Assist. I'm sorry. I shouldn't've stopped like that."

Kurt pulled the plugs out of his ears and smiled. "That's all right. Everyone does that the first time."

Sean was pushing 50. His face was weathered, his vibrant red hair just beginning to gray, and as he removed his gloves all saw that his hands were spotting with age. In this case the years only made him more dangerous, and more valuable. He slapped his gloves in one hand and looked about the rest of the cabin.

"Right, then! Has the Professor got us some more precise coordinates?"

"They just came through a few minutes ago," Ororo said. "Give me a moment to pull up to a better altitude."

The Blackbird's nose tilted up, and while Kurt casually stood where he was, Sean hastily sat down before he risked losing his footing. He wound up sitting right behind Logan.

"Read your file on the way here," Logan said quietly. "One question; you made any 'long term' enemies with the Brits?"

"Just the tangerines," Sean answered just as softly. "And they consider carrots traitors for havin' greens."

"So you're not marked?"

"Shouldn't be. Sinn Féin got everyone a good deal, they did."

The jet soon leveled out, and Ororo called up a quick holographic map of the area in question.

There was one good thing about Nathaniel's technological abattoir: it was in a rural environment. In fact, it was in the middle of some farmland, with acres of rye spreading out in all directions. Security was apparently light to non-existent, with a basic chain link fence around the perimeter and a single asphalt road in and out. The building was relatively small, with no obvious power or phone lines above ground.

"It's listed as an agricultural lab," Ororo stated without turning around. "Considering how many patents he has on seed stocks and low-impact pesticides, it could be a legitimate lab on the surface."

"It's hard to get a sense of scale," Bobby said. "How big is that place?"

"Judging by the fields, it could be as big as the school," Piotr answered. He pointed to a spot on the building. "Here is where trucks would pick up and deliver. If they are using those mobile torture labs, they could change them here and no one would know." He pulled his hand back and rubbed his chin in thought. "I worry about those fields the most. With all that rye growing, it could hide a great deal."

"Like a suit?"

"If the rye is tall enough, and the suit laid down flat, then yes, it could. It could easy hide a man. How tall is the grain, Ororo?"

"I wish I could get a current satellite picture, but it looks like there's nothing in range now," she said. "We're pretty sure that Moira and Isidro are stationary, so either they're parked somewhere, or they're in a cell in the building."

"Or under," Logan added. "Basements are easy to hide."

"Power source?" Bobby asked.

"Officially they're connected to the local station, but they're sure to have backups," Ororo answered.

"Well, there's one thing we can count on," Bobby said. "You need a lot of water to grow grain...."

----------------------

One of the best things about working with Graydon Creed was the fact he made himself available at all times. On the rare occasion when Nathaniel had no choice but to wake him up in the middle of the night, Graydon had always been polite and cheerful, qualities that came through even though the voice disguiser. He always made it sound as if he'd been happily anticipating this call. Of course, those same qualities that made Graydon a joy to work with also made him a very dangerous adversary, but Nathaniel would burn that bridge when he came to it. Right now, it was enough to know that his call to the colonies would be answered in short order.

Within seconds, a modulated voice answered, "Good evening, Mister Sinister."

"Good evening to you as well, sir," Nathaniel replied.

"Was your trip as pleasant as planned?"

"Pleasant and profitable. However, I fear we may have a bit of a storm brewing on the horizon. Our favorite Sentinel has made repeated interruptions, and has been taking more and more of my time."

Graydon made a frustrated sigh. Nathaniel could picture him pinching his nasal ridge and contorting his face in a pained grimace. "He has."

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"How many calls has he made?"

"Over the past ten hours, he has called me no less than three times. I hesitate to say this, but I'm beginning to fear for his welfare. He seems to be very anxious."

In the meantime, unbeknownst to either party, a third party was monitoring their conversation. Harold Trask had invited himself in. He sat at his secondary workbench, listening to Nathaniel and Graydon while he plotted orbital trajectories for his satellites.

Graydon: I don't suppose there's anything in particular he's upset about? Anything you could actually change?

_Oh, yes, Mystique, there's a LOT I'm upset about_, Harold thought, clenching his jaw in irritation. _And you'd be amazed about how much of it centers around you._

Nathaniel: Well, not really. He seems to be growing more and more concerned about his lack of field control.

Graydon: In that case, you're not the only one. He's taken to spamming everyone in the organization, right down to the janitors. If anything, he's just proving why we made the decision we did.

_After all, we can't have someone with FOH's actual welfare making tactical decisions, can we, mutant bitch?_

Nathaniel: It's good to see I'm not alone, but the question is what can we do about it?

Graydon: Well, I've warned him against this sort of action several times. I just sent an ultimatum to him yesterday, and he seems content to ignore me.

_That's because you're not in charge! I AM! I wouldn't bow to another human on this, let alone a freak like you!_

Graydon: His technical expertise is almost as valuable as yours, Mister Sinister, but his obsessive paranoia is about to make him a liability. I think our best bet is to quietly ignore him, but make it look like he's still part of the process. That way we can keep him happy without everyone playing babysitter.

Nathaniel: That requires the cooperation of the entire board. Is that a possibility?

Graydon: More than a possibility. We've been in agreement on it since the disaster. If it came down to it, that's what would be done. Now it's come down to it. If _you_ can't work with him, then this is our only recourse. And to tell the truth, I'm kind of relieved. He could portray a bad image, if someone ever photographs him during one of his tantrums.

_Tantrums! Is that what they called the defense of the human race? A tantrum?_ He banged on his keyboard, hitting so many keys at one time that an error screen popped up. Dammit! He entered the text again. He was _going_ to get access to that satellite. He was _going_ to watch Nathaniel's little testing lab like a proverbial hawk. Because if Nathan was going to turn against him, he needed monitoring almost as much as Mystique herself.

Nathaniel: A liaison is still needed. Do you have anyone in mind?

Graydon: Actually, I have _several_ prospects. In the meantime, don't worry about him. Feel free to "screen your calls", or disconnect that line entirely if you'd prefer.

Nathaniel: Disconnecting sounds like an excellent idea. Now I'll actually be able to get some work--....

Harold looked at the speaker, surprised by the sudden quiet spot.

Graydon: Is something wrong, sir?

Nathaniel: I'm not sure.... hold on for a moment....

Harold sat waiting with annoyance. The speaker was quiescent, and the computer was updating. Long seconds passed in silence as he watched the progress bar.

Nathaniel: I'm afraid I'll have to speak with you another time, my friend. I have to tend to things here.

Graydon: All right, then, sir. Good evening.

Nathaniel: Good evening.

Harold crossed his arms and tapped impatiently on his elbows as he waited for the screen to clear and refresh. Finally, he saw a light-enhanced view of some British countryside or another. (He could never remember the exact address off the top of his head.) Harold zoomed in on a few key spots. Had more mutants been delivered recently? Probably not: the loading dock was clear, there were neither rigs nor trailers parked outside, the lights were off, and Nathan likely had his hands full dealing with Hank McCoy down below. He pulled back to check for other possible contact points. Maybe someone had pulled up to the front door instead of the loading dock.

_And maybe the Xmen themselves might be attacking, drawn in by Henry's presence despite the 'Cerebro scruffs',_ Harold thought as he checked the perimeter. _You should never trust unproven technology, Nathan. Never._

He skimmed past fields of grain, their stalks gently swaying with the night breezes, then headed to the edge of the property. Where he found a large black aircraft parked by the fence. A large, distinctly military, distinctly stealthy craft, with no civilian applications whatsoever.....

"I have to tend to things here"? That was a mild term for it! The Xmen were launching an assault! Good Lord, Harold was _right_! He _knew_ something like that was going to happen the second they insisted on keeping Hank alive! That idiot, Nathan! He'd sealed his own doom!

Harold checked around the sleek jet, then the darkened building, but saw neither motion nor light. And even if he wanted to save Nathaniel's arrogant British hide, there wasn't anything he could do about it from here.

Wait....

Yes....

Yes, there _was_ something he could do. Because if the Xmen were all there, taking out Nathaniel, it meant the institute's protectors were occupied as well. Oh, the might have left a token force, but if only three of Xavier's battle-hardened abominations had left the terrorist's camp, it meant there weren't enough left to stop him.

His thoughts raced with the possibilities as he ran to the hanger. FOH hailing him as a hero. Mystique being exposed for what she was. The blood of abominations beneath his feet, cleansing his soul as it nourished the ground. Just the thought of eliminating these threats before they blossomed and claimed innocent human lives sent his heart soaring with excitement and pride.

Stryker went in with normal weapons, searching for extraordinary equipment. This time, Harold Trask would be bringing that "extraordinary equipment" with him.

TBC....


	11. Assault

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 10**

Nathaniel hung up the phone and looked around the blood red room with consternation. Why did the emergency lights activate? He strode quickly out into the hallway and to power control room, where three technicians were in a race to shut everything down. One technician noticed that his employer was standing in the doorway.

"The coolant flow has suddenly stopped, sir," he said as he continued his work. "We're shutting it all down before permanent damage."

"ALL of it?" Nathaniel echoed. "From every single source?"

Nathaniel moved to the control panel in question. The technician continued speaking, but kept his eyes on his work.

"Yes, sir. All sources have suddenly run dry. We're going to figure out why once we get things stable."

A glance over the man's shoulder told Nathaniel this wasn't some instrumentation glitch. The rest of the gauges were running much too hot, precisely what he'd expect from a coolant flow interruption. Only twice had they dealt with serious flow interruptions. Once was in the dead of winter, during a brutally cold spell, and the other was from a broken connection. Neither situation disrupted every single coolant flow. The men succeeded in shutting off the alarms in the power room, but the ones in Nathan's head were still ringing. And as things calmed down, and everyone could take the time to look at each other, they became aware that they were all thinking the same thing:

The only thing that could shut off every single source was deliberate sabotage.

"Activate the perimeter guards," Nathaniel ordered. "All of them."

"Are they to take prisoners, sir?" a technician asked.

Nathan thought about that for a moment. Then he said, "No."

--

Iceman laid down in the field of tall grain, panting for breath. God, that was hard. Jesus Christ, that was hard. The bastard had five different coolant pipes running to five different spots. To make matters worse, the damn things had some sort of heater built in to prevent freezing. He had to freeze one, go to another, return to the one, return to the second one, freeze a third before the first one thawed...

"Storm, tell me the power's off," he wheezed. "Tell me I don't have to go running around again."

Storm crouched next to Iceman, concealing herself in the rye. Out there, somewhere in the other fields, she knew the rest of the team waited as well, paired into teams of Colossus and Logan, and Banshee and Nightcrawler. She turned her attention to the gauge in her hand. An IR view revealed that the spot inside the laboratory was a bit warmer than before, but the ground around it was cold as permafrost. And as she watched a bit longer, the warm spot began to drop in temperature for the first time. Iceman had finally succeeded in freezing everything solid.

"Rest easy," she told him. "You've done it."

"So now they're on backup power," Logan said over the communicator. "Think it's enough to open up those holes?"

Ah, yes; those three pesky little pits they discovered during the ground density scan. At first the Xmen thought they might be burial shafts, considering their size and shape. After all, Nathaniel probably had a lot of "failed experiments" to get rid of. But the density inside of the shafts wasn't just lighter than the surroundings: it was zero. These were foxholes, covered by what was likely a metal panel. One pit was in the middle of a field, one was in the packed dirt road that ran between fields, and one was only a few yards from the laboratory building itself, right next to the loading dock.

But there was also one very good thing about those pesky little pits. Each one of them had an access shaft that lead straight under Nathaniel's lab.

"Nathan may be arrogant enough to use one of his own properties for this, but I doubt he's foolish enough to seal off those holes when the main grid goes off-line," she said. Silently, she added, _Besides, we need those pits to open._

"Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying."

"Three guesses as to what's in those pits," Nightcrawler added in a worried tone.

_At least now they're coming out on our time schedule instead of his_, she thought. And they were _going_ to come out any second now. Storm stirred up the wind, setting the rye to swaying and bobbing in waves. The starry night became gray with cloud cover, and the hail started in. It was small hail, the size of peas; not enough to hurt her teammates, but hopefully just enough to play havoc with any motion sensors. Assuming Nathaniel had them active on backup power.

_And assuming he has them at all, _she thought ruefully_. Everything we're doing here is based off of assumptions_. _Goddess, please don't let those access tunnels seal themselves off before we can get through..._

Nightcrawler and Banshee covered their heads with their arms. Maybe the hail wasn't big enough to injure, but it stung something awful.

"Come on you bloody bastard," Banshee grumbled. "Open that damn hatch."

The only way they knew that their assigned hole had opened was by watching a patch of rye "part" in the middle. The sliding action was completely silent. The men held their breath as the head of an amplifier suit rose up from the waving grain, its back toward them.

"One up," Nightcrawler whispered into his mike.

"Mine too," Logan answered, his voice just as soft.

"And the third one's coming up," Storm said quickly. "Go."

Banshee tensed and ground his teeth, which was Nightcrawler's cue to plug his ears. The suit took a step up, out of the hole. And then Banshee shouted, an unnatural set of pure tones that rattled Nightcrawler's teeth in their sockets. The very air in front of Banshee wavered, the hail pulverized into snowflakes. The suit stumbled as if hit by a physical blow to the back of the head, and Nightcrawler bolted on all fours for an opening into the ground that he couldn't yet see.

Colossus laid flat in the rye, watching the massive suit rise up as if it started from a kneeling position. Was that how they stored those things in the ground? Curled up on their knees, like a man in deepest prayer? Colossus thought about Isidro, and hoped that the pilot of this suit was a willing participant, because he couldn't afford to be gentle. Banshee's sonic scream cut through the hail and wind far to the right, and the suit spun to face the sound. That placed its back squarely at Colossus' mercy.

Logan and Colossus sprang as one entity, each man going for one of the suit's knees. The suit toppled over backwards under the assault, sparks flying from where Logan sliced cleanly through its servos. Colossus used the momentum to his advantage, tossing the huge thing a good twenty feet into the rye field, and clearing the way for Logan to enter the access tunnel.

Logan hoped he'd hit something important, but he couldn't afford to look back at the results of his free shot. No way was Nightcrawler going to be able to do everything by himself in the House of Essex. He dove into the pit, narrowly avoiding a volley of machinegun fire from the unengaged suit behind him. On one side of the six foot pit was a series of metal steps, presumably for the suit's use in leaving the pit unhindered. That wasn't what held Logan's attention. It was the access port he needed... and the damned thing was shut tight. He cursed as he sliced through the door; it wasn't a problem for him, but for Nightcrawler it was insurmountable.

" 'Crawler, is your door locked?" he shouted over the gunfire.

More dissonant screeching echoed in Logan's tender ears, and then Nightcrawler's voice came over the radio. "Not anymore. Ow." After a second, he added, "I never intended to stress test my new eardrums this way."

Logan snapped a glow stick and ran into the access tunnel. It was just big enough for a man to walk through, and though there were glassy spots overhead that seemed to be lights, the entire length was dark Nathaniel's heart.

_Guess he didn't spring for any emergency lights down here_, Logan thought. _Here's hoping nothing else is wired to the backup generator, either..._

:

Harold Trask didn't trust the teleporter. In fact, the very idea of teleportation itself was untrustworthy. If you disassembled and reassembled your body, you ran the risk of "improper assembly". If you cut a hole in space and walked to the other side, you could always get lost. Or worse, something could take your place. And he knew that those _things_, those claw-like demons, were always waiting for someone to make a mistake. Just one false move, and they would come through again. In case there wasn't enough of a reason to want mutants eliminated, a teleporter's power risked far more than its user.

But now there wasn't much of a choice. If he was going to get onto Xavier's grounds, this was the way it had to be. He slowly inhaled and exhaled, programming the coordinates, preparing himself for the possibilities. If it was anywhere else, he'd never dream of using it... but these were mutants. They had to go. They were more dangerous than ten faulty gateways. If he opened up something unstable, at least it would destroy them as well.

_It was worth it_, he told himself. _It was worth it. It was worth it_.

He took his last steadying breath, mentally activated the switch, and stepped into the white glare.

The white washed over him as he walked in. Two steps, three steps, and to his incredible relief, he saw a pinprick window open up in front of him, revealing the dark, quiet, deceptively beautiful grounds of the Institute for Gifted Youngsters. He exhaled as he set foot on the grass, the moist earth packing solid under his feet. The white glare behind him faded, and now he was alone, with the school only a minute's walk away. He strode into the bushes, careful not to snap too many branches underfoot. He had to get closer before he let loose. He had to get a _lot_ closer.

_Target, active power use. Three o'clock, down angle._

His suit's artificial voice startled him. He looked to the right and down, and saw a hideous little creature, crouched and trembling in the bushes.

:

Rosa clicked her warning frantically on her radio, so frantically that the greenery around her shook. This suit was HUGE! Even the one that came after her in Mexico wasn't as big as this! It had to be three stories tall! She tried to be quiet. She hadn't said a thing. But it suddenly turned to her and aimed its fist, and she dropped the radio and ran into the grove on all fours. Behind her she heard that sound, that gentle, horrible, all too familiar sound of the suit's energy weapon. She smelled timber burning, heard trees come crashing down behind her. Was it shooting down the trees, or just pushing them aside to get to her? She ran faster. _Please, God, don't let me die, don't let me die, don't let me die..._

Syryn's scream echoed through the school grounds, followed by a whooping siren and searchlights. One flashed over Rosa, and she couldn't see for a second. She knew she was right in front of the pool. She dove in, and was rewarded with icy cold water. She swam down toward the bottom as fast as she could, praying she could get far enough down that the thing couldn't shoot her so easy, or grab her. She glanced back to see a gigantic metal hand bare inches from her ankle...

An explosion of sparkles hit the giant suit in the face, startling it before its hand closed around Rosa. Jubilee put everything she had into her attack, but though she could burn through bulletproof vests, she wasn't even scorching the paint job on this thing. It moved for her instead, and it was moving _fast_. Much faster than something that big should be allowed to move.

"Jesus Fucking H. Christ!" Jubilee shouted into her radio as she ran into what few trees were left. "This thing's as tall as the school!"

Dammit, this suit was designed to take on all of the Xmen at once! Why was Harold having so much trouble with runts like this? He picked up one of the fallen oak trees and swung it at Jubilee. The girl fell under the assault, hurled dozens of feet away where she did not stir. Good. Finally. His first kill. But just to make sure... He moved over to her and placed his foot over her body...

And was promptly thrown aside by a blow to his right. He rolled to his feet. Well, it seemed that one of the adults was still on the grounds. He'd recognize Cyclops anywhere.

Cyclops kept up the assault as Rhane ran in and dragged Jubilee off the lawn. Good Lord. _**Good Lord!**_ These things just kept getting bigger and bigger! And the kids shouldn't even be out here! There were three students in close vicinity, and God knew how many more were lurking nearby. What they hell were they thinking?

"Rogue, get the kids out of here!" he shouted.

"Not if it includes me, you're not!" Katherine shouted back.

Katherine? She must have followed him out when the alarm went off. "Kitty, where are you?"

He wanted to look around to see where Kitty and Rogue were, but he literally couldn't take his eyes off the monstrous suit, for fear he'd lose his firing angle. He ran along the tree line, firing every step of the way.

_Don't worry about their location_, Xavier's voice rang in his head_. I will coordinate them_.

_Professor, get the rest of the kids inside! This is going to be a slaughter!_

The suit ripped up an architectural boulder and hurled it like a common stone. By traitorous reflex, Cyclops flung himself back on the ground and watched as the huge rock sailed over him, barely an inch from his nose. It hit the ground with a sickening combination of dull thud and splintering crack. There wouldn't be a tree left on this side of the institute before long.

Another boulder was heading straight for his face. He pulverized it into fine sand as he scrambled to his feet. And then something else came; it looked like a tree trunk. It was all he could do to keep himself from being flattened by the incoming debris. Between missiles, he saw Katherine running in on the suit from behind. If she could pull this off, their problems were over. If she could just hit something vital...

She ran into the robot's leg and bounced off. The impact was enough to temporarily stun her, and enough to garner the attention of the robot as well. It didn't take a chance at being pushed off balance this time; it just swung down after her with its fist. By that time Kitty had sunk into the earth. The impact left a divot the depth of an irrigation ditch, but there was nothing of Kitty to be found.

:

John stood on one of the balconies of the institute. He knelt by the railing, doing what he could to disguise his silhouette like Rogue said to do. He was _just_ close enough to be able to feel the electricity in the gigantic suit. He could feel the circuitry and switches, but that seemed to be all he could do. He could have a computer shut down and smoking by this point; here there just wasn't anything familiar to grab. He kept trying, shutting off power here and rerouting it there. This thing must be one huge redundancy--

_**JOHNATHAN PORTSMITH! GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW!**_

The Professor's voice hit like a sledgehammer, shouting loudly enough to deafen.

_I'm not on the lawn! I'm in one of the rooms!_

_**YOU ARE A TARGET OUTSIDE ON THE BALCONY! GET INSIDE THE WALLS THIS INSTANT!**_

Suddenly he knew he had to leave. It was way too dangerous there. One stray bullet and he was history. He bolted inside and had reached the hallway before he realized that the impulse might not be his own.

_Professor, that's not fair!_

_**Young man, if I have to push you to keep you alive, I will do so! I have lost entirely too many students, and I'm not losing any more of you! Do you understand me?**_

_But if I can screw up any of that thing's circuits--!_

_**Then do it from inside the school's walls! Feel for the electricity! Don't use your eyes!**_

...

He'd never even considered that...

:

Nightcrawler galloped headlong through the pitch black tunnel. What started as a level run grew into a good 10 downhill grade halfway through. Twice he ran by what looked like security cameras, dark and motionless. Spaced at disturbingly regular intervals were narrow strips of different colored metal, which he was sure had to be separate plates retracted into the ceiling.

_Thank God those dividers didn't automatically come down when the power went off, _he thought. _He must have thought the combination of the suit and the first door would keep anyone out._

A damp chill built with every step, and by the time he finally reached the end of the tunnel, he could see his breath hanging in the air. Just his luck; the door at this end was locked shut as well. There was a keypad there, of course, covered with frost, but without power, it wasn't much use. Bobby must have inadvertently frozen this part of the tunnel along with the water pipes. How thick was this door? And how big was the room behind it? Was it occupied? The ground density scan wasn't worth much when it came to things like this.

_Now what? Do I wait for Logan? Don't tell me I'm going to have to risk a blind 'port..._

As he was considering contacting Logan, the door creaked slowly open. It slowly slid a quarter inch into the wall, and eerie red light peeked through. Nightcrawler flattened himself against the wall farthest from the opening, and heard someone cursing from the other side of the door.

"Come on you bloody bastard," a voice snarled.

Just what Banshee said not a minute ago. The coincidence was ludicrous enough to bring a smile to Nightcrawler's lips. The door jerked a fraction of an inch further.

"What the hell's taking so long?" another voice demanded. "It slid fine last month!"

"Yeah, well, someone put the anchors on this thing."

Both voices were muffled, as if the were wearing some sort of face mask. The chances were they belonged to armed guards with helmets. A few fingers of an armored gauntlet worked their way between the door and the wall, and Nightcrawler had his verification. Nightcrawler took a quick peek through the base of the tiny opening to get his bearings. Three pairs of armored boots, metal floor, enough space behind the last pair of feet and the wall to materialize. He teleported into the room.

The three guards were covered in all encompassing battle armor, which made them look a good foot taller and broader than they probably were. They carried short stocked rifles of some kind, maybe semi-automatic. Logan would have recognized the build instantly, but for Nightcrawler they were just something more to avoid. Miraculously, no one had noticed him yet. They must not have been able to smell his arrival in those enclosed helmets, let alone hear him over their own complaints. He made the most of his opportunity and left through the open doorway. Rescue first, fight later.

"I'm in," he whispered as he stalked out into the hall.

"Shit a brick!" a guard shouted from back in the room.

Suddenly all three were running from the room, and straight into Nightcrawler.

:

Logan yanked his claws free of the last of the guards in the tunnel's end chamber. One of these guys got a warning out, he was sure of it. Their timetable just got slashed again.

"I'm in too," he checked in.

"I noticed!" Nightcrawler snapped.

Logan grabbed a weapon from the fallen guards as he ran out the door. "You need help, C?"

Pause. "No, I've got it." Pause. "I think." Pause. "That armor's hard on my knuckles."

"Takin' you at yer word, bub," Logan said as he ran down the hallway. "I'll call you if I run into anything."

The place stank of antiseptic and that damned industrial strength air freshener crap. So far, the only scent he could pick up was his own. He headed to the southern side of the structure while Nightcrawler headed north.

_Chances are that the labs will be somewhere in the middle, _he thought_. Maybe I should head "inland" instead of skirting the edges like this._

Something happened above him. It was a heavy sound, an impact, and if it could be heard all the way down here it must have been one _hell_ of an impact. Colossus, maybe, breaking his way in? Storm's lightning? One of the 'bots? Logan kept running. It could be have been caused by angry fairies as far as he cared. Until something broke through the ceiling, it wasn't his problem.

So far all he found were doorways, with those doors slid into open position. Quick glances showed the rooms to be empty, or only storage. Then he got to a closed door, innocuously labeled LAB 1.

_Now we're talking, _he thought_. Something important enough to lock in when the lights go down._

Three slices and he cut had another doorway into the thick steel. It fell into the next room with a loud clanging thud. He snarled in irritation; nothing here but equipment. Not even any techs. He hoped Nightcrawler had better luck.

At that point, Nightcrawler's voice whispered, "_Gott im himmel_."

Logan jogged to the next closed door, labeled LAB 2. "Whadja find, partner?"

"I... uh..." His voice wavered, and Logan heard a strange bird-like squawk come through the mike at the same time. "I don't think I can save this one..."

Great. Leave it to the priest to find the first "experiment." "Either 'port her topside or leave her for later. We don't got the luxury of being helpless."

"Then I'll have to leave her, God help me." Another bird squawk nearly overrode Nightcrawler's voice in the transmission. "I'm sorry. I'll come back for you, I promise."

Logan opened up another empty lab. This was getting monotonous. Maybe he should just run like hell until he got some live scents. The bottom level was only so big. He was sure to run into Nightcrawler sooner or later.

"I have never wanted someone dead so much as I want Herr Essex now," Nightcrawler snarled.

Logan broke into a run, leaving LABS 3-5 behind. "Dibs on his eyeballs."

"Logan, I found the main cell wing! North side of the--"

The communication stopped dead.

Oh shit.

TBC...


	12. CounterAssault

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 11**

When the lights went to "submarine red", Moira and Isidro knew something was up. They prayed it was Xavier's promised rescue. Moira in particular split her prayer between "rescue us" and "please, God, don't let the ventilation cut out in this hermetically sealed cell".

It wasn't until they saw Nightcrawler go literally flying by their cell that they knew for sure.

It would take a second or two for Nightcrawler to figure out what went wrong. He came upon what had to be a row of cells, contacted Logan, and then he was flying face first down that hallway. He managed to get his legs up in time to absorb _some_ of the shock, but he still hit hard enough to leave his ears ringing.

"Hot damn!" someone hooted from down the hallway. "You ain't squashed flat!"

Nightcrawler looked back to where the distinctly male, distinctly American voice came from. A huge man walked into view, slamming his huge fist into his huge hand, and smiling a nearly-as-huge smile.

"You shoulda been a blue spot on the wall! I'm impressed, buddy! I really am!" he laughed.

_All right, Kurt, you were warned about this big blob, _he thought as he spun to a crouching position, somewhat like an annoyed cat who'd been placed on his back._ Just don't let him grab you again, and you'll be fine..._

He was about to warn Logan of this new development when he felt and heard pieces of something fall from his left ear. Where he'd hit it against the wall. Where his communicator was. Without taking his eyes off the mobile mountain, he caught a glimpse of plastic and metal bits on the floor. Oops. He was on his own. Time for a little manipulation...

"Don't make me unlimber the full force of my fat jokes on you," he started, backing "nervously" against the wall.

His foe just grinned even wider . "Oh, right, you got any new ones for me? I got me a collection, and they _all_ end with someone getting crushed."

The man's grin turned acidic, the cruelty reaching not just his eyes, but every ominous motion of his body. He slowed down, apparently savoring the panic of his trapped prey. Just as Nightcrawler suspected: this mountain was a bully. Maybe he could turn this to his advantage. He looked around frantically, like a trapped animal, as the man closed in. The man slowed even further.

"Whassamatter, buddy?" His tone was something usually reserved for talking to infants. "Didums get all scardey-waredy?"

Then Nightcrawler suddenly disappeared in a puff of blue smoke, leaving a startled and confused flesh mountain a few feet from the end of the hallway.

"Hey! What the _fuck_?"

Nightcrawler reappeared several feet behind him and began his fast search of cells, looking for prisoners. Empty, empty, empty, empty...

"Get back here you little shit!"

Oh-ohh. The Blob back there was pissed now. Nightcrawler teleported into one of the unoccupied cells as one very irate man pounded on that cell's bars. He did his best not to wince as the Blob's fist connected with, and cracked, both bars and Plexiglas shielding. If Nightcrawler had remained there, the bars should have strained him like a sieve.

_My little Oscar-winning performance isn't going to work twice, it seems. Well, if I can't keep him overconfident, maybe I can get him mad enough to make mistakes..._

Nightcrawler smiled sweetly, waggled his fingers, and gave his enemy an "air kiss", all while batting his eyes in an infuriatingly coquettish manner. The Blob's face turned a wonderful shade of red, and he wound up for a haymaker. Nightcrawler teleported into the cell on the other side of the hallway as the man's fist smashed through armored Plexiglas and reinforced bars. He didn't want to think too hard about the shrapnel that he just avoided.

The clear plastic shield did wonders for cutting down sound, but Nightcrawler could easily hear the blue streak that spewed from his tormentor's mouth as he realized he'd been had again. The Blob spun about, ripping his arm out of the hole he created and spraying the hall with more plastic and metal shards. It only took him a half second to find Nightcrawler in the cell across the way. His face was turning purple now, and this time he didn't bother with a fist. He bolted headlong for the cell, which partially crumbled under the assault.

_As satisfying as this may be, I can't keep doing this,_ Nightcrawler thought as he reappeared in the hallway. _Sooner or later he could resort to taking hostages..._

He had a few precious seconds to search for Moira and the rest of the prisoners before his enemy pulled himself free of the wreckage. He bolted down the hallway as the Blob roared in anger from the cell. There! To the left! By the time the Blob stumbled back into the hallway, Nightcrawler was long gone.

Moira and Isidro had just enough time to register that Nightcrawler had seen them when he appeared in their cell. In less than a second, all three had disappeared, arriving in the Blackbird's interior. From the constant noise, a horrendous windstorm must have been raging outside.

"Hank's there an' so is someone else, cell next to us!" Moira shouted quickly. "An' there's sure to be more somewhere!"

Both she and Isidro looked a bit off balance, and to tell the truth, so was Kurt. Teleporting with two people was a difficult feat at the best of times. He gently pushed them to the wall, to two of the seats.

"Stay clear of the center," he said. "I need to have a clear landing platform here."

"We'll be up in the cockpit," she replied. "That all right for ye?"

Nightcrawler nodded. "Tell them my comlink is gone, won't you?"

Moira nodded, and Nightcrawler disappeared. Moira then moved forward to the cockpit and its sensor array. Rain and gravel-sized hail constantly pounded the windshield, making it difficult to see anything outside. Isidro joined her, looking out the copilot's window while she looked out the pilot's side.

"Moira," he whispered, tapping her on the shoulder.

She couldn't hear his words, but the tapping did the trick. She looked his way, then moved up next to him, sharing the view through the copilot's window. Her jaw dropped in shock. No wonder it was so noisy in the jet. A funnel cloud was roping down right over Nathaniel's lab.

* * *

For Storm, calling down the vortex was the easy part. More difficult was magnifying it into something dangerous. In the last few minutes, while Banshee and Colossus kept the amplifier suits busy, she pulled and pulled, creating a whirlwind out of nothing, and then building its speed. With Banshee's sonic screams coming fast and strong, and the hail already buffeting their sensor arrays, the suits never heard the cyclonic action build up behind them. 

When the suits first struck at Westchester, Storm's hands were tied. Fearing catching her friends in the middle, she restricted herself to the most basic and selective of attacks. Now, with Colossus, Iceman, and Banshee spread out over several acres, she had free reign, and the tornado just kept building. F1. F2. F3. The tighter she squeezed the vortex, the more speed it picked up, like a skater spinning in a circle.

F4. It was bucking her for control, now. It wanted to be let out to play.

_Not yet, my child, _she thought_. Not yet. Just a little more strength before you touch down. Just a little more..._

F5. She could feel it. The winds topped 300 miles an hour. When this touched the lab it was going to explode, reinforced walls or not. She lit the vortex with lightning bolts, and the night sky temporarily turned to day.

The wind made it impossible to talk over the link, but communication had many, many forms. Like the Biblical Pillar of Fire, Storm's sinuous tornado lit up in a twisting column. Colossus, Banshee, and Iceman had been waiting for this for what felt like forever. As one, they fell to the ground and grabbed the earth in their hands. Banshee howled out a perfectly-tuned cord, then modulated up a half-step. With that counter-signal, Storm yanked the deceptively small whirlwind down. It hit the lab like a 1,000 pound bomb. Debris flung out in every direction. Some whizzed over the heads of those in the fields, but most of it was sucked up into the spinning vortex.

Every amplifier suit spun to face what was left of Nathaniel's lab. Their reaction were so fast, so human, that Colossus hated himself for what he was about to do.

"Forgive me," he whispered in Russian.

He ran up behind the suit, picked it over his head, and threw it into the tornado.

* * *

Jonathan Portsmith joined the rest of the students inside of the Danger Room, the best armored room in the institute. Half of the students were in there already. Most of them were handling the situation well, but poor Judy was starting to hyperventilate. 

"Told you the Professor'd make you come down here," Jaideep said.

"Get bent," John muttered.

"We're gonna die," Judy whimpered. "Rogue was so wrong. We should've run like the last time. We should've run."

Judy's whining was really getting on John's nerves. "Judy, the damn thing has some sort of mutant tracking thing in it. Just how far are we gonna get?"

She stared at him with an open mouth. "How... how do you know that?"

He gave a frustrated growl and rolled his eyes. "I was inside of it, remember? And I saw the specs, okay? Just shut up and let me work from here."

She shook her head frantically. "No! That's not true! It can't find us like that! We have to get out of here!"

She started to bolt. Artie tackled her before she got two steps. The rest of the students grabbed her. She started to scream. Someone slapped her, and she stopped shrieking. They led her to the farthest wall from the door.

"Look, we'll be okay down here," Jaideep told her. "Mr. Summers is up there and so's Kitty. We're just down here so they don't have to worry about us. We'll be okay."

Jaideep's words, repeated over and over, seemed to calm her a little. John and Artie looked at each other.

"You're gonna go into the suit again, right?" Artie asked quietly.

"Yeah," John answered. "Maybe I'll be able to throw its aim off or something. It's not like I can get hurt doing anything from here."

"Anything we can do to help?"

He sneered in Judy's direction. "Keep the princess quiet, okay?"

"You got it."

John moved away from the huddle, sat cross-legged on the floor, and closed his eyes. It took a few seconds for him to "re-acquire" the giant robot's signature through all the electronics in the institute basement. Judy was still whimpering, but she was doing it so quietly that it wasn't a bother anymore.

_I'm down in the Danger Room now, just like you asked, _he thought.

_**Good. **_

_And I can still "see" the robot._

**_Better. _**Pause**_. John, can you isolate one process from another?_**

_I should be able to, but it's real hard..._

_**I want to you concentrate on finding the mutant detection equipment. Let me know when you've discovered it, and what you can do with it.**_

_Yes, sir._

* * *

It didn't take long for Rosa to swim out of the water and meet up with Siryn. The older girl had managed to scrounge an ill-fitting Xmen uniform jacket, which hung off her like a tent even when it was zipped up. Rosa looked her up and down. 

"At least it's armored," Siryn told her.

Cyclops' beams lanced up at the robot, though the man himself was hidden behind a few remaining trees. The robot was an easy target. It was hurting the damn thing that was tough. Concussive blasts that could rip the turrets off tanks seemed to have little effect on the beast. At best they pushed it off-balance. Maybe it was more vulnerable to sound than to sheer pressure.

Siryn glanced Rosa's way. "Plug em', sister."

Rosa didn't currently have "ears" per say, but still she crouched down and put her hands over her tympanic membranes. Siryn took a deep breath.

_Focus forward, pure pitch, just like Da' told me. _

The sound had a will of its own. Unchecked, it would blow out every window on this side of the mansion. But Siryn's will was stronger. She focused it forward and up, at the robot's head. One of Cyclops' shots hit it again, and the combination of their two blows set the thing reeling. It made a drunken swing with its arm, firing its energy weapon all the way. Siryn realized she was in the line of fire. Her pitch changed, from treble to bass, and the air in front of her shimmered. The energy hit the shield and exploded like a series of grenades. The greenery around her and Rosa blackened, a nearby marble bench cracked with heat, leaving only the two of them, and the tile under their feet, unscathed.

More and more energy came down. Siryn's face turned red as she kept the scream up. Her father could do this for hours! What was _wrong_ with her? Why couldn't she hold a note for _twenty damn seconds_? In fact, it didn't look like the shield was going to last _five_ seconds.

She felt Rosa grab her jacket. Siryn closed her eyes; if Rosa was doing what she thought she was going to do, this was going to be close. She did not resist as Rosa leapt with her, springing up and over the pool with enviable strength. The stone cracked and melted underneath them, but by then both Siryn and Rosa were ten feet away over the middle of the pool. Steam rose from the chlorinated water as the suit tracked them with its energy weapon, but it didn't get very far. Cyclops' beam came up and knocked its aim off to the right, away from both pool and mansion. Siryn's scream ended in an undignified squawk as she and Rosa hit the water.

"Damn you, Rogue, what the hell were you thinking!" Scott shouted at her. "These kids aren't ready for this! They should have gone out the tunnels!"

Rogue crouched behind a tree and shouted back. "And then where? This thing's got a tracker! Where we gonna go, huh? We're just gonna split up an' make it easier to kill us?"

_**Scott, I don't like to say this, but Marie is correct, **_Xavier's voice echoed with regret.**_ This particular unit has some sort of mutant detection system in place. It knows exactly where we are, it will follow, and it moves faster than any of us here. Like it or not, this is where we make our stand._**

_We make a stand with two and a half adults and a bunch of kids. Great. _

**_There are more differences about this unit, Scott. I can just sense a consciousness within this suit. This time the pilot is not comatose._**

The suit suddenly spun around and swept his weapon down as if he was swiping something off his leg. Marie saw the distinctive yellow blur of Regis' teleportation popping around the robot's feet. As the thing tried to grab for Regis, ten Jamies came running out of the brush, each one holding a limpet mine. The suit kicked out, sending half of the Jamies flying. In that second, over a hundred Jamies flew into existence, every one of them doubled over and clutching their chest in pain.

Cyclops felt a similar pain seize his own chest. Jamie Prime had been hit, and hit hard.

_Professor, get some of the duplicates to carry each other off! Make sure one of them's Jamie Prime!_

It was an absolute horror. Half of the duplicates carried a few of them off, the others, despite the sympathetic pain, tried desperately to grab the limpet mines and affix them to the robot's legs. In return, the massive machine just stomped them into the ground. Several mines went off, tearing one Jamie limb from limb. The robot's armor wasn't even scratched.

_They're only duplicates_, he told himself. _Just duplicates_. But Jamie had never had a duplicate seriously injured before, let alone killed. And with Jamie already injured_... I can't do this alone. If only there were more of me..._

And he looked at the horde of Jamies, and he looked at Rogue, and Rogue looked back. And the two of them didn't need Xavier's influence to think the same thing. Rogue took a deep breath and nodded. She ran for one of the countless Jamies in the area, removing her gloves as she went. Of all the ones on the field, she went for one that was curled up against a tree, hugging his chest. As she got closer, she saw blood streaming from his mouth and nose.

"God it hurts," he sobbed. "Oh God it hurts."

Rogue's hands shook as she knelt down beside him. "Jamie, I don't know if I can take power from a duplicate, but I gotta try."

"Jamie" looked up at her with tearful eyes. "I'm not Jamie. Jamie's not talking now. He's all quiet and stuff." He took a rattling breath. "But you take what you need. You take everything you need."

Rogue gently held the duplicate against her, touching her hands to the back of his neck. He started to tremble, then violently shake. And suddenly Rogue was just holding thin air. There wasn't even any blood from him on her uniform: it was as if he never existed at all.

As Rogue turned around, once again, Kitty phased out of the ground and reached up to the robot's leg. How it knew she was there Rogue had no idea, but it did, and it reacted instantly, raking the ground with energy fire. The beams went through Kitty, but they blew her back regardless. She fell into the brush, all too solid, steam marking her place in the cold night air.

Rogue looked back to Cyclops, who now did something she'd never seen before: he removed his shades. The full force of his optic beams was focused on the back of the robot's knees. At the same time, he pointed to where Kitty fell. It was time for Rogue to "try out" her new ability, if she'd absorbed it at all. She stamped her foot hard enough to leave her shin stinging. Her consciousness split, and now she was seeing out of three sets of eyes. She and the duplicates looked at each other in shock for a moment, and then both duplicates ran into the battlefield.

Harold Trask fell to his knees. Cyclops' hit felt like a sledgehammer to the back of his legs, but that was the least of his worries. His own mutant detector was going crazy! There were so many of them that he couldn't tell which was which!

"Find the phaser!" he told it. "Find Pryde! Concentrate on her! She's the real danger!"

_Target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target..._

"Goddammit, what the hell's wrong with you!" he screamed in his cockpit. "Pryde, Katherine! Phaser! Seek!"

_Target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target, active power use, down angle, target..._

There were too many mutants around. He'd never run it with thousands of them in range: he'd never come across such a concentration before. Somehow his mutant detector had become "stuck". From now on, he'd have to depend heavily on his internal forcefield to keep Katherine Pryde at bay.

_Well, it stopped her at least twice. And I hurt her pretty bad with that last plasma burst. All I have to do is eliminate the rest of these freaks, and I'm back in business._

Back in the Danger Room, John had gone into a low-level trance. He sat there, eyes closed, his breath perfectly even, if a bit labored. He finally had it. He had discovered the detection equipment, and forced it into an infinite loop. But he wasn't sure how long he could keep it up. The backup systems were already eating away at his deception.

**_You're doing fine, John, _**Xavier's voice said softly, calmly**_. Don't worry about anything else. Just keep that loop up. That's all you need to do._**

_Yes, sir. I'm doing my best._

Xavier's mental voice subtly changed tone. There was a tension to it that hadn't existed before**_. John, I'm going to do something that may be disconcerting. I'm going to disassociate your other senses, so all you'll be able to see will be the suit's systems. It should help you concentrate completely on your task, and I promise it will be temporary._**

_Um... Okay, sir._

He barely noticed when he went deaf. He didn't notice when he couldn't feel his own clothing against his skin. Nor did he notice when his sight failed, as his eyes were already closed. It was a remarkably gentle change, and considering how hard he was concentrating, it actually did make things easier. Maybe he could keep the loop going for a few more minutes...

And because of what Professor Xavier did, John didn't even twitch when Jamie's body was hauled into the room, and Judy started hysterically screaming his name.

Six Jamies, wheezing and bloody, carried Jamie Prime between them. As two Jamies fell to the floor and disappeared, the other four laid Jamie Prime down. One duplicate looked up, each breath blowing disturbing bubbles in the blood that ran freely from his nose.

"Don't go out there," he wheezed. "Don't-"

And then all the duplicates were gone, leaving Jamie Prime alone on the floor. As bad as the duplicates looked, Jamie Prime may as well have been hit by a freight train. Most of his face was covered with blood, most of his sweater was stained that same red. That chest was sunken, and it wasn't moving right when he breathed.

Judy wasn't alone, she was just the loudest. She broke free of her restrainers and bolted to Jamie's side, still screaming his name, while the rest of the students looked on with stunned horror. Judy grabbed the neck of Jamie's sweatshirt and ripped it open like it was paper, the tough cotton-poly strands of fabric softened to something fragile and brittle. Jamie's chest was just starting to turn purple, and his sternum was sunk by inches. Something deep inside Judy realized that Jamie's ribcage had been crushed, and without it, his lungs would collapse. No one here knew how to use the medlab equipment for something as severe as this, and none of the adults could come down and help them right now.

Tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't hear her own sobs. She just knew had to do something about that chest, because Jamie wasn't going to last long enough for help to arrive.

TBC...


	13. The Last Stand

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 12**

The last thing Nightcrawler said to Logan was that he found the cell block, and that it was at the north side of the basement. Then, in rapid succession, communication came to an abrupt end and things got very, very noisy up above. Storm's little "present" to Mr. Essex had finally touched down.

Logan only called out for his partner once as he ran. He wasn't about to waste his breath, or clog up the frequency, if the elf wasn't able to hear it. He ran full-tilt down the hallway, which was disturbingly bare of occupants, hoping to get to Nightcrawler's side before anything permanent happened.

Moira's voice was the next to come through the comlink. "Storm, this is Moira! Nightcrawler brought Isidro an' I to the jet and went back in! His comlink's gone, but he's all right!"

"Phase two, people!" Storm shouted, her words just understandable over the ferocious winds outside.

_Phase two already?_ Logan thought. _They must have taken care of those bots outside pretty quick. We're getting pretty good at this._

"The big man's still near the cell block, so be careful!" Moira continued.

At that precise moment, the double-doors in front of Logan parted, and he was assaulted by the sight and scent of that very "big man". A very big, very _pissed_ man. He lunged for Logan.

"First that blue faggot, now you!" he spat. "How many more of you are there?"

Logan ducked under the Blob's first swing. Unfortunately, this guy took up the whole damn hallway. Getting by him was going to be a problem.

"You wanna bet I can't carve you up like a Christmas ham, bub?" Logan warned.

"Yeah! Sure! I'll even double down!"

Logan ducked another clumsy swing. Fat was supposed to jiggle, wasn't it? This guy didn't "jiggle". Sumo wrestlers would have killed for this guy's build. But they'd be embarrassed to death by his technique. Logan couldn't tell whether his enemy was unskilled at combat, or maybe he'd let his temper get the better of him. In either case, he didn't feel like waiting for his aim to improve. Just after the next fist that sailed over his head, Logan slashed in at a prodigious amount of flesh.

Two problems. First, it was harder to go through this guy than he thought it should be. Next, and more importantly, there wasn't that much blood. Oh, he cut a good swath, all right, and it probably hurt like hell, but there just wasn't much there to bleed. Blobbo here had so many dense layers of fat protecting him that it'd take Logan all day to cut down to something vital.

Pain spurred the Blob to speed. He grabbed Logan's left wrist, crushing every vein and artery under his fingers. Then he slammed him into the wall. And then the next wall. And the ceiling, and the floor, and back to that wall again... As bright flashes burst in front of Logan's eyes, he picked up the barest hint of sulfur. As his vision failed completely, that smell suddenly became overpowering. Blob shouted, the world lurched, and suddenly Blob's voice was a bit softer with distance and Logan was lying on the floor of the hallway. He wasn't the least bit surprised to look up at Nightcrawler as his vision finally cleared.

"Oooh, he's not going to like me for this," Nightcrawler said as he looked past Logan, back to where the Blob must be.

It smelled like the Blob was only a dozen or so yards down the hallway, and it sounded like he was taking his frustration out on the walls. Logan staggered to his feet, shaking out his crushed arm.

"Think you could've gotten us a little more breathing room, partner?" He got a closer look at Nightcrawler, who was suspiciously pale. "Okay, maybe not..."

Nightcrawler smiled weakly and gestured down the branching hall. They weren't within sight of their enemy, but they could sure hear him.

"FINE! ANOTHER ONE! BRING IT ON, TIN MAN!" the Blob roared from around the corner.

"Did you think I was dumb enough to come alone?" Nightcrawler asked.

"Actually, yes, I did. And you blocked off the way to the cells, unless you're thinkin' of another one."

BANG. SMASH. CRUNCH. The combined sounds of battle and whatever-the-hell-was-going-on-upstairs pounded away at their ears and nerves.

"We have to get the rest of the prisoners," Nightcrawler said. "Before those two bring everything down around our ears." He grabbed Logan's shoulder. "I get us both there, you open the cells?"

"Do it."

Just before they teleported, both men had the chance to see Colossus' gleaming silver body as he sailed by the hallway in front of them.

Nightcrawler and Logan reappeared in the cell block. Blob, in his rage, had done a number on a few of the cells, but the rest were sealed off and in pristine condition. Nightcrawler stumbled to the right and slumped against the wall, trembling with fatigue and gasping for breath.

"All yours," he wheezed.

Logan ran down the row of cells. There were only a dozen of them left intact. This wasn't going to take long. At least, he hoped it wouldn't take long. In one cell, he saw a half-starved man in filthy fatigues, sitting on the floor. Logan immediately leapt to the cell. The prisoner watched with wide eyes as Logan slashed through Plexiglas shield and reinforced bars, then kicked in his improvised door.

Logan extended his hand into the cell. "You the one who talked to Moira?"

The man nodded as he stood up. "She's next door, y'all aughta get her first."

"We already did. Come on, it's your turn."

The prisoner accepted some help from Logan, but not much. He looked half dead, but his spirit wasn't completely broken. Damn, he seemed familiar, but Logan couldn't quite place where he'd seen or smelled him before. The prisoner looked down at the rifle Logan had strapped across his chest.

"Yeah, that's for you, if you know how to use it," Logan told him.

"Damn straight I can," he answered.

Logan pulled the loop back over his shoulder and gave him the weapon. "I was hopin' I wouldn't be hauling this thing around for nothin'. What's your name, soldier?"

"Sergeant Martin, sir."

Logan looked back at Nightcrawler, to see if he'd caught his breath over the past few seconds. Apparently not; he'd need a little more time. And Logan wasn't so sure teleporting their latest addition would be a good idea anyway: he might not be able to handle the shock. As he looked around to see just what else could go wrong, he saw a dark furry lump huddled in the corner of the cell directly across from Martin's. He couldn't make out too many details, but he could tell that the lump was watching them, eyes unblinking and glittering in the dim red light.

"Moira said that there's your buddy, Hank," Martin told him. "They been pretty rough on him."

_Oh Jesus, Hank_... Logan made himself look away to Sgt. Martin, who was deftly checking the rifle's clip and chamber.

"Look, our ticket out of here is sitting by the wall, and no matter what you think, I don't want you shooting him," Logan said as he pointed to Nightcrawler.

It wasn't easy to see Nightcrawler in the shadowy red light, but Sgt. Martin must have managed. He looked in Nightcrawler's direction, seemed to be focusing in, and then gasped in shock and almost dropped his rifle.

"Oh my Lord, you got away," he said, his voice trembling. "You... Stryker didn't kill you... You got away..."

_Stryker?_ This guy recognized Kurt from his association with _Stryker?_ He wasn't aiming the rifle at Nightcrawler, and he didn't seem angry. It was more like overwhelming relief. Nightcrawler's confused look told Logan he didn't recognize him either. Okay, fine, a mystery to explore once they got out of there. Logan went to Henry's cell and cut his entry.

This time Logan didn't need to kick it in. Because something hit him from behind, hard, and blew him into the cell; bars, shield, and all.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rogue came back to Cyclops after absorbing Jamie's power. They had to work fast. Jamie's duplicates were down to a couple dozen, and one winked out every few seconds. They couldn't provide confusion cover much longer. And the giant robot, which Cyclops had just knocked down to its knees, was getting up again.

Without turning around, Cyclops handed back his visor with his bare hand. "Do it now!"

She plucked the visor from his grasp, then held his hand in hers. Cyclops immediately fell to his knees, his optic blast waning in strength. God, it felt like he was being buried under wet cement. Being smothered. He clung to consciousness like a drowning animal to a log.

_Professor, guide them... I can't..._

Harold Trask finally got to his feet. The pounding had stopped. There were no enemies in front of him, and the entire institute to destroy. He raised his arm... only to have his aim deflected AGAIN by Cyclops! What was this freak made of? He should have run out of power long ago! As he swung down, another beam caught his arm. And then another. And another. In seconds, his main gun was pinned in mid air, trapped between continuous streams of red. He tried to pull it down, but for once his amplifier suit just wasn't strong enough. What the hell was going on? Had the deviant figured out how to split and reflect his beam? He looked down to see _six_ Cyclopses... but they had long hair...?

Then something bright red smashed up under his chin like an uppercut from a heavyweight, and something else smashed into the back of his head, and now his head was pinned in place, the same as his arm...

Rogue made a mental note to never, ever, EVER touch Mr. Summers again. Not unless her life depended on it, and maybe even then. Kurt was no problem. Logan she could handle. Magneto and Pyro she didn't want to dwell on too much, but she could find a way to withstand it all. Scott Summers was a **nightmare**!

The power was bad enough. How the hell did he keep his neck in one piece? It was as if someone shoved her head back every time she opened the visor! This man must have the neck muscles of a gorilla, even if he didn't look it.

But then came his psyche. Battered, self critical, perfectionist, micro-managing, overcome with guilt and grief for his fiancée's loss. Stay in control every inch of your life. Never let your beams out, even for the briefest second, or the world suffers for your weakness. Imperfection is death. She channeled it into anger; every single bit of it. This was HER place. These were HER students, HER responsibility. They looked to her for leadership, for command decisions. She would rather die than let them down.

Rogue stood where she was, holding Cyclops' bare hand, while Cyclops himself crumpled on the muddy field. She fired on the suit as it once more aimed for the institute, and its aim went up into the air. One of her two "non-powered" duplicates stood behind her, whaling away at her back with tree limb. She only split off one "Rogue-clops" with every hit; if she was Jamie, there would have been at least five each time. But with every "Rogue-clops", they came closer and closer to pinning that monstrous machine down.

Six of her pinned the thing's primary weapon arm in the air, and ten more pinned its head in place, which made sure that the rest of the body wasn't going anywhere. It flailed with its other arm, kicked out with its feet, but none of the duplicates was close enough to be hit. For the moment, it was helpless. For the moment only.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Judy put her shaking hands over Jamie's heaving chest. He needed a rib cage. He needed the bleeding to stop. He needed everything at once. A little voice reminded her that she couldn't affect living material, only "dead" things like plastic, stone, or seasoned wood. She couldn't do what she was about to do.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she touched the right side of his chest. "I can't do this," she sobbed. "I can't do this."

Under her hand two shattered ribs came together and reformed.

Behind her, the students whispered.

_We gotta get him to the infirmary._

_What if his back's broken?_

_Professor said to stay here._

_If we don't get him there he'll die!_

_What do we do when we get him in there? I'm not a doctor. Do you know how to stop internal bleeding?_

"I can't do this," Judy kept sobbing. "I can't do this." Two more ribs reformed. She moved her hand up. "I can't do this."

Artie was first to realize what Judy was doing. He knelt by her and watched as that horrible, ugly dent in Jamie's chest slowly filled back up.

He looked back to the group and whispered, urgently, "She's putting his chest back together!"

"No I'm not!" Judy shouted, still crying. "I can't do that!"

But her hands moved further up Jamie's chest, and the sternum continued to raise to its correct position.

Artie swallowed. His voice trembled. "It's okay, Judy," he whispered. "You're doing okay."

"I can't do this," she kept repeating.

"Yes you are. Keep going. It's okay. You're doing okay."

The rest of the students gathered around, as Judy worked. The whispered encouragements. They held their breath. They watched as Jamie's entire chest reformed under the hands of a girl who couldn't stop crying.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

One instant, Logan was making a new door for Henry's escape. The next, he was blown into Henry's cell by some kind of white energy stream. Nightcrawler had the time to stand up, and Sgt. Martin had the time to turn towards the attack, when that same white energy came for them. They wound up sprawled on the floor, as Nathaniel Essex walked calmly out of Sgt. Martin's cell.

Nathaniel's hands tingled a bit. They always did that after a particularly strong energy surge. He'd drained most of his power with that first shot, but Weapon X warranted it. He couldn't take the chance of him recovering any time in the next five minutes. The other two were simple enough. All that was left was Henry, curled up and submissive in his cell, too frightened to emerge. He looked down at Richard Martin, unconscious a few feet away. It was a nice idea, trying to reprogram his system to create the controlling serum, but it just never bore fruit. And considering the rifle the man had been cradling, he wasn't as broken as he thought. Too dangerous. Best deal with him now, then see what he could do about the rest before leaving.

Before he could consider the problem further, something big, hairy, and very fast tackled him. It and Nathaniel both fell into Martin's cell. Nathaniel wound up on his back with a snarling, ape-like Henry on his chest, his royal blue fur black in the eerie red light. Nathan let loose with another bolt of white before Henry got the chance to go further, but Henry avoided it, bouncing back to the Plexiglas cell shield and clinging like bizarre furry spider. His fanged grin was not as feral as Nathan thought it should be.

"You always were an arrogant prick, Nathan" Henry rumbled.

Nathaniel smiled despite himself. So the procedure _hadn't_ robbed Henry of his sentience after all! There _was_ some hope yet for future applications! He had no time to think on this, though: Henry wasn't about to give him the chance. He leapt again.

_This cell gives him too much room_, Nathaniel thought as he missed yet again_. I have to get into confined quarters if this is going to work._

He edged back to the previously-secret opening in the back of the cell. The service hallway between cells was too small for Henry; Nathan would have the advantage then. But Henry made short work of that plan. His third bounce off the walls landed him between Nathaniel and the egress, and suddenly Nathaniel was face down on the cement floor with Henry pounding away.

For a great deal of his life, Henry held back. He held back when he played with childhood friends. He held back in Jr. High School football. He held back in his schoolwork. All to give the veneer of "normalcy". Even when he studied under Professor Xavier, he held back during training sessions. If he lost control of his strength, people could die. Now he tore into Nathaniel with everything he had. He removed his scrubs with a few swipes of his claws. He pounded at his ribs with his fists, he put all his weight behind his knee in the small of Nathaniel's back. If Nathaniel was going to bring the beast out, he was going to get every square inch of it.

So blind was his rage that he didn't initially notice that Nathaniel wasn't bleeding. No ribs had broken. No vertebrae had popped. After three seconds of continuous assault, the man should have been a mangled pile of flesh. He wasn't. In fact, when Henry reared back for another blow, he saw something that stopped him cold:

Sometime during the fight, Nathaniel had turned to metal. The _exact_ same way as Colossus. For a moment, Henry was looking at Piotr, and wondering how he'd gotten there so fast.

And Nathaniel looked back at Henry with a slight, confidant smile. "You were saying, Henry?"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

For the first eighteen years of his relatively short life, Piotr Rasputin had never found an equal. Now, in the space of a single year, "worthy foes" were coming out of the woodwork.

Blob was bleeding, somewhat, from that slice from Logan, but he stood up to Colossus' pounding all too well. Worse, Colossus just couldn't seem to budge him. Once he planted his feet on the ground, the Blob was the ultimate immovable object. It didn't make much sense: anything that heavy should be warping the metal corridor under his feet. Colossus should be able to toss him the same way he had been thrown.

Blob just wasn't going to let him by, and Nightcrawler hadn't returned for him. So much for that "snatch and grab" plan. He _told_ Kurt he was too heavy to teleport with...

_Cyclops always said the battle plans were the first casualties of war_, he thought. _My mission must now be to keep this thing busy for the rest of the team._

He stood his ground, crouched and wary. The corridors echoed with the noise from Storm's tornado far above.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

_**Jubilee, Rosa, Theresa, and Rhane are coming your way,** _the Professor thought to Rogue**._ John has the unit's mutant detector in a loop for now, but he'll only be able to give us a few seconds more._**

_We have a window, _Rogue thought back._ And when Katherine gets over here, we'll take advantage of it._

She actually felt that last hit from her duplicate. With her armored uniform, and Jamie's ability to absorb and channel kinetic energy, Rogue shouldn't have been able to even notice it. Even more telling, two extra bits of consciousness were no more. And finally, nothing more split off. She had run out of Jamie's power, and her first two duplicates were gone. God only knew how long the rest of her duplicates would last now. She let go of Cyclops before she drained him into a coma. The giant robot jerked around like a man who'd caught his arm and neck in a couple of snares. Its armor was finally deforming with stress under the onslaught. Maybe, just maybe, they could take off the arm...

Two powered duplicates winked out, and now that arm only had four streams on it. Rogue Primary intensified her beam on the giant's neck. They _had_ to remove the sensor array. They _had_ to make sure it couldn't see to blunder its way into the institute. And they _had_ to open up a spot in the armor for Katherine to get through.

The rest of the students had finally made their way to Rogue's side. Jubilee's hair glistened with blood, but otherwise she was standing on her own, looking more angry than hurt. Bad, but at least serviceable. It was Katherine she worried about. Not much could hit her in her phased state, but that weapon flung her away like a rag doll. Even as Kitty approached she was trembling as if cold. Jubilee they could replace in this plan, but it all hinged on Kate. Rosa ran out to help Kate to the group.

"I hope you're up to this, Kitty, because you're our best shot!" she barked, keeping her gaze pinned on the struggling behemoth.

"There's some sort of force field built into the unit," Kitty said, her voice a little unsteady. "But I've figured out its frequency by now. Gimme another shot, and it's mine."

"Lee, Siryn, concentrate your fire on the neck," Rogue ordered. "Rhane, you're the strongest. On my mark, boost Kitty up as close to the neck as you can. Rosa, stay by me."

Rhane shifted, from pure wolf to the kind of bipedal humanoid that special effects teams would envy. The group now fought with an ear-splitting accompaniment in the key of F minor. It covered up any speech, including the angry profanity Jubilee was surely spitting. The remaining two "Rogue-clops" duplicates on the arm gambled that they'd so damaged the weapon that they could concentrate totally on the neck.

A combination of red force, plasma "firecrackers", and sonic power tore into that one spot.

Three more duplicates disappeared.

And suddenly the suit's head popped off like a champagne cork. It sailed over the rest of the combatants, and against all odds, managed to fall cleanly into the deep end of the pool. Siryn's scream ended and she sat heavily on the ground, gasping for air.

"Move it, gals!" Rogue shouted.

Kitty clung to Rhane's back as she half ran, half loped into the field. The suit was now free, but badly off-balance, blind, and deaf. It could blunder anywhere. It dropped to its hands and knees, then started to rise again. The last few duplicates surrounded and pinned it at the waist, but they wouldn't be around much longer. Rhane ran in between two of the duplicates and leapt up. She got a second jumping point on the thing's bent knee, but from there she had little to gain altitude from. Kitty pushed off at the apex of Rhane's leap, and from then on she kept drifting up to the unit's shoulders, to the opening that sparked in the moonlight. If only the Rogues could keep it pinned a little longer, she'd have a perfect shot...

More Rogues disappeared. There were only two keeping the suit in one place now. Katherine dropped onto the shoulders, phased and intangible, and once more hit something solid and unyielding. No problem. She knew that would happen. It was the open neck she needed. She scrambled to the opening and reached in.

She was still blocked.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hank was now on the defensive. He'd unloaded everything on Nathaniel before he was armored, and it didn't seem to have done much. Now he seemed to be facing an older version of Colossus. There was no possible way he could get through that armored skin.

The good part? Nathaniel wasn't any faster armored up. That cell, small as it was, gave Henry just enough room to avoid his blows, and then his blasts. And now that he and Nathaniel were roughly the same width in the shoulders, Nathaniel wasn't going to be using that thin "escape corridor" in the back either.

"Stalemate, Nathan," Henry said. "You're not getting away, you know. The second that Logan gets up, he'll make you into aluminum siding."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that so soon, Henry," Nathaniel answered calmly as he unleashed another bolt. "I can do this all day, and it looks like you're getting tired. All I need to do is wing you. And I doubt even the Wolverine can recover from a missing throat. In fact, let's go test that hypothesis, shall we?"

He moved for the hole in the bars, directly under where Henry was clinging. And in that moment, with all the power Henry had in his newfound forced mutation, he felt very, very impotent. If he did nothing, Nathan could well fulfill his threat. Even if he didn't kill Logan, he could easily kill Kurt and Martin. And if he took the bait and got into hand-to-hand... well, if Colossus' Danger Room tests were any indication, Henry wouldn't last very long.

He landed on Nathan and shoved him face-first into the ragged edge of the bars and plastic shielding. Maybe he could blind him. Maybe this armor wasn't as tough as Piotr's. Maybe Nathaniel wasn't as physically strong as Piotr.

Nathaniel spun about, grabbed Henry's arm, and punched him in the face over and over.

Henry's last lingering thoughts were, _Then again, maybe so..._

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"You're a mutant," Colossus panted. "You're working for someone who _tortures_ mutants. How can you betray your own?"

"Don't fuckin' gotta answer you," Blob said. "Don't fuckin' gotta answer to _nobody_!"

Both of them were getting winded now. They had gone through several rooms of machinery, smashed samples, "uncleaned" clean rooms. Colossus had done what he could to lead his enemy away from where Logan and Nightcrawler saw prisoners and test subjects, and so far it seemed to have worked; they hadn't run into anyone else. But right now, evacuating everyone was going to be impossible with this raging bull down below, and he just couldn't seem to do anything but exchange blow for blow. At least the Blob was slow: Colossus landed two punches for every one of his. It was like hitting a brick of solid clay. If only he could pick this fat man up, he could get him out of the way!

"Colossus, Banshee and Iceman are coming down," Storm said through this comlink. "Have you been able to pry your friend up from the floor yet?"

"_Nyet_," Colossus snarled softly through his teeth.

"Tell us where ye are, an' we'll be right there!" Banshee's voice came through.

Colossus swung at Blob with deliberate clumsiness. He hit the wall beside him instead, sending noisy shockwaves down the hallway and severely deforming the metal.

"Gonna make you into a hub cap," Blob was threatening. "Gonna make pig sticker into a rake. Gonna make blue boy wish he was dead."

Blob hadn't noticed, but Colossus had: it was very quiet down here now. Storm must have lifted the tornado. Colossus rushed at the Blob one more time. Blob grabbed Colossus' metal fists and held. It became a pushing match, strength against strength. Colossus was strong, Colossus was big, Colossus had height and limb length, but Blob had all the mass in the world, it seemed. The two stood there, jerking from one side to the other, trying to gain the advantage, for several seconds.

The push war went on until Banshee cut a hole in the ceiling fifteen feet down the hallway. Colossus had expected it; needless to say, his enemy hadn't. Blob dropped Colossus' hands and instinctively tried to cover his ears, but Colossus was fast enough to grab the big man's wrists instead. Banshee hovered in the middle of the hallway, the very walls reverberating with his tones, and focused his voice on the mountain man. Iceman dropped down behind Banshee and put both his hands on the floor.

Blob struggled to turn around. He ground his teeth and pushed against Colossus' grip. He lifted up one foot and put it down... right on a very slick mixture of ice and slush. He _slipped_. For a brief instant, his feet were no longer planted on solid ground.

"You're MINE!" Colossus roared as he lifted the Blob bodily over is head.

Blob thrashed about, but now his centralized mass became a severe disadvantage. There was no way he could twist out of Colossus' hands. Banshee cut open a swath of the ceiling big enough for even the Blob to sail through. Bobby walled himself and Banshee in with ice as the winds sucked up everything lighter than a hundred pounds. For Storm hadn't dispelled the tornado: she'd merely lifted it up a bit, to where it wasn't scouring the ground clean.

And Blob looked up into the gaping maw of darkness and light and debris, and knew too late what Colossus was about to do.

Storm looked on, impassively, as Colossus threw the huge man out of the hole. The Blob sailed close to the tornado, hovered there as he flailed about, then was slowly sucked up into its vortex, gaining speed every instant. He screamed at them, he gestured rudely, he made threats that Storm couldn't hear. Then, just as the other three amplifier suits had done, he too disappeared into the debris cloud that stretched far, far into the night sky.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"NO! You're not keeping me out!" Kitty screamed, pushing down at the invisible shield inside the giant robot's open neck.

The last duplicate was gone. Rogue was alone, now, and she didn't _dare_ shoot with Kitty on the suit. She didn't _dare_ send the thing that off-balance. The robot lurched forward. Kitty clung on, her legs flailing about. The thing stood up and whirled around with its weapon arm, sweeping across the broad side of the institute. Rogue held her breath.

Nothing fired.

Finally, Kitty disappeared into the stump of its neck.

She fell into the darkness, into a tangled maze of electronics, fiber optics, gel, motors and servos. She spread out like a skydiver, maximizing the damage from her lethal touch. She caught a glimpse of a man in a chair, screaming soundlessly, his body taut and trembling, before falling back into the suit's dark interior once more. In three seconds flat she emerged underneath it and dove into the mud, where she made a hard right turn and began her "underground swim" to safety.

The suit jerked and flailed. Its damaged arm spun at the shoulder so wildly that it literally unhinged. The spasms sounded like they tearing it apart from the inside. The dreadful scream of rending metal was like an animal being slowly dismembered. It took ten long seconds for the "screaming" to stop and the behemoth to lay still on the battlefield, its neck steaming.

Kitty surfaced a few feet away from the hulking machine. Panting, shaking, the world spinning around her. _Oh God, I'm gonna be sick... _She fell to her hands and knees. She felt like she was going to throw up, but she couldn't seem to follow through. Rhane came up beside her.

"Tell me..." Kate swallowed. "Tell me... it's not moving..."

"I think ye killed it," Rhane whispered.

Rogue leaned against a broken tree and closed her eyes. They did it. It was finally down. Finally. Jubilee and Siryn sat on one of the few existing patches of grass. Rosa crouched nearby.

"Rogue," Scott rasped. "I need my visor."

Visor? She didn't need it anymore? Rogue blinked, then removed the visor. Cyclops' power was gone. If only the rest dwindled away so easily. She handed it to Scott, who hadn't bothered to stand up yet: he just slipped the visor on from where he laid on the grass. He slowly lifted his head and looked at the motionless enemy in front of them.

"Good job, Rogue," he said softly. "Very good job."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nathaniel had just landed his fourth punch on Henry in two seconds when his world imploded, spun, darkened, and snapped back. To the rest of the world, Nathaniel disappeared in a puff of sulfurous blue smoke. Then he reappeared with Nightcrawler a few feet down the corridor.

Nightcrawler felt like someone had punched him in the chest, **hard**. He'd _meant_ to go further with Nathaniel, to get him out of the basement entirely and let him be sucked up in the tornado like everyone else. But he just couldn't manage it. He couldn't go more than a few feet with this man. He staggered. Nathaniel shoved him away, but seemed just as unsteady on his feet. Both stayed where they were, Nathaniel leaning against the wall, Nightcrawler crouched on all fours.

Then Nightcrawler's tail twitched, and he gave him a sly, predatory smile. "So. Teleporting doesn't agree with you, Mein Herr?"

Nathaniel, looking much more like Colossus than he had a right to, swung around and fired a white bolt from his fist, but his aim and balance hadn't recovered yet. Nightcrawler grabbed Nathan's leg with his tail and teleported again. And again. Just a few feet each time. Just a few feet. One more teleport looked like he might take Nathaniel down entirely...

Someone did pass out with the last 'port. Unfortunately, that someone was Nightcrawler. He slumped to the ground while Nathaniel fell to one knee, gulping in deep breaths of air.

_A few seconds to recover,_ Nathan thought. _That's all I need. A few seconds. Then everyone here is dead, and I can leave. A few seconds..._

As he was recovering, he saw motion up ahead of him. He looked up and directly into the barrel of a rifle, which was in the hands of Richard Martin. No quips, no pithy sayings, no nothing. Nathaniel just got a faceful of bullets.

The sound jolted Nightcrawler back to complete awareness. A couple ricochets punched him where they hit his armored uniform. Nathaniel fell, then, still encased in metal, but with an angry, red gash in the exact center of his forehead. Sergeant Martin had very good aim.

As Kurt laid there, gathering enough strength to move, he heard metallic "clicking" sounds. The rifle must have run out of bullets, and Martin was still pulling the trigger.

"Goddammit, don't do this to me," Martin choked. "I can't be out."

Kurt slowly pushed himself up on his arms. "It's all right, Sergeant Martin. I think... the danger has... passed..."

He trailed off as he finished his sentence. Sergeant Martin wasn't aiming at Nathaniel anymore. He had the barrel of his rifle pressed up under his own chin.

He pulled the trigger twice more before Kurt scrambled over and ripped the weapon out of his grasp. "What are you DOING, man?"

Martin didn't look at Kurt so much as he looked through him. "I thought there were more bullets 'n that. I thought there were more. Clip should've held more. Why'd they have to shoot them all off? Why... why'd they..."

As Hank and Logan stirred, Richard Martin collapsed into a sobbing heap. Kurt stared, torn between offering assistance or embarrassing the man further. He hesitantly reached out and touched Richard's shoulder.

Logan stood up and moved out of Hank's cell. "Damn good grouping," he noted softly, nodding toward Nathaniel. "That from our boy over here?"

Kurt nodded, and his voice was just as soft. "When I grayed out, he took Nathan down."

"Looks like grabbing the rifle was a good idea."

Kurt's voice was even softer. "The gun may have saved _us_. What saved Herr Martin was that he ran out of bullets."

_To be concluded_


	14. Aftermath

**Sinister Designs: Chapter 13**

The lab was finally cleared of combatants. The few guards that survived the X-men's intrusion were swiftly restrained, and Moira found some very potent sedative that she made sure to pour into Nathaniel's open wound. As for the rest of the crew, though Logan caught several unfamiliar scents, they were long gone from the building. It was assumed that the rest of Nathaniel's men must have escaped at some point, but whether they made it into the countryside, or were currently orbiting the earth with the rest of the tornado-strewn debris, was up to anyone's guess.

When Kurt finally took the time to poke his head through the hole in the basement, and really, _really_ look at the landscape, he saw... well... he wasn't sure how to describe it. For a several hundred foot radius, the land was scoured to the ground. Tiny bits of rebar marked the outline of the lab. Decorative shade trees were now ugly stumps; in three cases, they had been yanked out by the roots. The asphalt was all that survived. Yet past that point, rye still swayed in the breeze, and the trees had all of their leaves firmly attached. It was as if God's hand came down, touched a small section of the Earth, and left everything else unscathed.

Kurt casually pulled himself onto what was left of the laboratory floor and walked to Ororo's side. Her eyes were fixed on some gray clouds as they moved swiftly out to sea.

"That was draining," she said. "Very, very draining."

"Where will all this 'stuff' land that the tornado took up?" Kurt asked.

"The heavier things will land in the ocean somewhere between here and Ireland. The lighter debris..." She shrugged.

"It would seem that out fat friend has a long swim ahead of him."

"By which time we should be long gone--" She stopped herself and held up a hand, tilting her head in the direction of her comlink. "Yes, Moira, we did that the first thing...Iceman froze the coolant..." Her eyes widened. "You're not serious...? No, wait, hold on: I'm going to put this on speaker for Nightcrawler."

Ororo removed her headset and held it between her and Kurt as she activated the exterior speaker.

"We're on?" Moira's slightly distorted voice asked.

"Go ahead, Moira," Ororo answered.

"I'm down here in the control center with Henry, and we're both thankin' God ye shut the power off. If ye hadn't, this whole place would be flooded with nerve gas by now. He had lasers, he could seal off corridors, it's like somethin' out of a movie down here... What, Hank?... Oh sweet Lord..." Moira's voice shook with rage. "Hank says the bastard had a secondary disposal for the rest of the test subjects. He'd just pump a cocktail into their I.V.s... God, he could've done this any time..."

Kurt let out an explosive sigh and crossed himself. "May God be praised that he never found that time."

"We've got five 'subjects' that we can save," Henry's now very deep voice rumbled. "Two of them... we'll see what we can do. Moira says she has room at her lab until they recover. If they do recover."

Sparkles of light shone dimly down the road. Light in shades of white and red, alternately flashing.

"We've got company," Ororo said. "I think it's only fire and emergency vehicles, but there could be a SWAT team as well. It depends on whether or not Nathan called for help."

"Let me take it," Moira said. "I'm comin' up."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, 'take it'?" Sean interrupted. "What do you mean, 'take it'? You're not just gonna go out and talk to them, are you?"

"Why not?"

"They'll confiscate everythin' and everyone on the grounds! We should be evacuating all these people, not playin' with the Brits!"

"Pardon my intrusion, Banshee, but that's a logistic impossibility," Hank said. "These people down here need treatment and handling that the Blackbird is ill equipped to handle. We might be able to get away clean, but we'll lose half of these poor devils in the transfer. Like it or not, we must rely on the constabulary's good graces."

"Nathan isn't the only one with pull upstairs, Sean," Moira added. "Of everyone here, they wouldn't dare lock me up and throw away the key."

"I've heard that before," Sean grumbled. "Right before the wind shifted."

"Banshee, your caution is commendable, but the fact is that these victims come first," Hank said patiently. "Besides, with such personnel as we have available to us, how long do you think any unjust incarceration would last?"

"I hate to interrupt, people, but those lights are getting closer than I feel comfortable with," Ororo said. "Moira's staying here, that's decided. Hank, what about you?"

Hank's sigh was clearly audible across the link. "I'm a material witness, I'm evidence, I'm one of the only ones who can make sense of all the data. I'm everything combined into one tidy package. As concerned as I am about my legal status, I can't afford to leave, either. However, I highly recommend that you leave to avoid international entanglements. If they want you, they can file a subpoena, but it's more likely this will never see the light of day."

"I'm more worried about the two of you never seein' the light of day," Sean mumbled.

Moira made a frustrated noise. "In that case, ye can come down with trumpets blarin' an' have your jailbreak. Happy?"

"What about the soldier?" Kurt asked. "He's definitely American."

"And from what I heard he has certain politically and diplomatically embarrassing affiliations," Hank said quickly. "Considering that Stryker still has enough allies in the government to make sensitive evidence disappear, I strongly suggest our new friend avoid any legal entanglements for the duration."

"Did Henry just say to take Herr Martin with us?" Kurt whispered, low enough that the comlink couldn't pick it up.

"Take him with us and don't let anyone know he exists," Ororo answered just as softly.

She glanced up at the rapidly approaching fleet of vehicles. They were close enough now that she could distinguish fire trucks from police cars. It seemed that this was indeed an emergency response as opposed to a military one. Good. That would be much easier for Moira to talk her way out of, if necessary.

"It's time for us to go," she said. "Moira, Hank, you two stay in contact with us. Call as soon as possible."

"Let's just say we have your number memorized," Hank replied.

The rest of the X-men clambered up at various points from the ruined lab. Even Sean chose to climb up, rather than risk his voice giving them away. Piotr came up last, cradling Sergeant Martin in one arm as easily as if he was a doll. They were airborne before the authorities were close enough to hear them take off.

:

John waited wherever he was for the Professor to return. By now the gigantic amplifier suit had been dead for several minutes, all electronic impulses long since gone. He waited there, feeling a bit alone, all of his other senses shut down and with only the electrical "chatter" of the institute for company. It was definitely a relief when he heard the Professor's voice again. As a matter of fact, he actually saw the man walking towards him in the darkness. Boy, did _that_ look strange.

"John, I want to thank you for all that you did a few minutes ago," he said. "You were instrumental in the fight. And also, I want to apologize. I had... ulterior motives for shutting away your senses as I did."

"Um, okay, whatever," John answered. "Can you put everything back now? This is feeling really weird."

"Of course."

The Professor extended his hand and touched John on the forehead. All his senses began to return. It felt like someone slowly turned up the volume, giving him time to adjust to the influx. He was someplace quiet, with a fair amount of equipment, and it sounded more enclosed than the echoing, cavernous Danger Room. When John opened his eyes, he was slumped in one of several chairs in the medlab, with Professor Xavier retracting his hand from his face.

Medlab? Was that the "ulterior motive" that the Professor mentioned? He'd been injured, and maybe the pain would have made it harder to concentrate? John sat up straight and looked down at himself. He was still dressed in the same nightclothes as when all this started, and he didn't look like he'd been hurt.

Xavier sighed and looked over to the right. "No, Jonathan, you aren't the one who was injured, though you're very close to the reason I shut your senses down."

John followed Xavier's lead and looked in the same direction. On a table he saw Jamie, plugged into tubes and machinery and computers and God knows what else. What little of Jamie he could see was bruised and swollen.

John gasped in horror. "Holy shit, Jamie!"

"Jonathan, please," Xavier chided gently.

"I... I'm sorry, Professor... but... Jamie's not dying, is he?"

"Not anymore."

John stood up. This wasn't supposed to happen, Jamie getting hurt so bad. He was supposed to have his dupes go out instead. John started to feel sick. Here he was, all safe and sound inside the school, and Jamie was getting mangled out there. He moved closer to Jamie's bed, stopping a few feet away at the Professor's gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Is he gonna have to go to a real hospital?" John whispered.

"This is the 'real hospital'," Xavier answered. "You'll be hard-pressed to find an emergency room in all of New York that is willing to treat a mutant, let alone one with James' ability."

"That is so racist," John growled. "If someone did that to Mexicans or something no one would put up with it."

"In this case, they have a valid point. James' ability is purely reflexive, unaffected by his state of consciousness. What do you think would happen if a duplicate was created during his operation?"

John paused. "Jeez. That'd get messy."

"It might even cost James his life."

John looked around at the other beds. Three of them were occupied by Jubilee, Judy, and Kate. Jubilee was propped up watching TV with headphones on, with her head all wrapped up. Judy and Kate seemed to be just sleeping, but looked pale and sick, like they had the flu. All three had electrodes on their head and somewhere on their chests under their clothes. Okay, so Kitty and Jubes got hurt outside, the same as Jamie, but the "princess" was in with the rest of them. What was her problem?

"What happened to Judy?" John asked.

"Judith is suffering the after-affects of pushing her abilities beyond her current limits," Professor Xavier said. "James came in with a crushed ribcage, and Judith put that ribcage back together."

John's jaw almost hit the floor. Judy wasn't supposed to be able to work with living material; only artificial stuff, or stuff that has been dead for a while. And he just couldn't believe that Little Miss Panic could hold things together long enough to do anything like this.

"Whether or not her actions seem to be in character, the fact stands that she saved James' life, and she did so of her own volition," Xavier continued. "I know that Judith has had a difficult time adjusting here, but it would be very good if you could give her a bit of breathing room in the days ahead. I think she has proven herself beyond any shadow of a doubt."

John just nodded, dumbfounded. A wall intercom beeped for attention, and Xavier quietly excused himself from John's side to answer it.

"I wanted to let you know a couple of things, Professor," Scott said through the intercom, his voice flat. "Our Rockem-Sockem-Robot doesn't have any conventional munitions onboard, so we didn't have to worry about any booby-traps. The power source is another matter, but it had safety interlocks, so Kitty shut it down instead of setting it off. And we've finally gotten down to the cockpit in the chest."

"Is the pilot still alive after Catherine's disruption?"

"Mostly. He's another old friend of ours. Three guesses."

Pause. Xavier closed his eyes. "Harold Trask?"

"Bingo. And he's twitching like an addict going through withdrawal. His eyes are open, but he's not tracking me or blinking. It also looks like he's trying to scream, but he's not making any sound."

"Was he 'plugged into' this vehicle in the same manner as the other pilots?"

"Yes and no. Instead of being curled up in an artificial womb, the cockpit here is more like a conventional fighter pilot. He has room to move, he's wearing an actual jumpsuit, and he seems to have a row of input jacks running down his back as well as one at the base of the skull. I'm not sure whether I should unplug him or not."

"I'm going to take a look inside from here. Give me a moment, Scott."

"Holding."

Xavier closed his eyes and slowly, ever so carefully, looked in highly agitated mind of Harold Trask.

Harold's eyes were open. He could see. His jaw ached. His tongue was dry. His body twitched. He could feel the warmth of the seat behind him, the shockingly cool air of the night in front of him. He heard the wind rustle the leaves of the trees that still stood. He saw the stars up ahead. But when he tried to swallow or close his mouth, he discovered that he had no control over his muscles, even those that focused and moved his eyes. He was forced to passively experience his world, until a memory reared up to overwhelm his senses.

_Harold was a young boy, watching as father ranted against the coming mutant storm. Mother tried to calm him. It only made father shout more, even shove her away. Father was such a strong man._

Harold was back at the institute. The stars were overhead. The night was cool. The trees' rustle was much softer. Cyclops was looking down at him. _Looking?_ Dear Lord, all he had to do was open that visor of his, and Harold was a dead man--!

_Harold was dissecting a dead Talon, marveling at its input jacks and neural technology._

Harold was back at the institute. Cyclops was out of his field of vision. It was deathly still. In fact, he couldn't even hear himself breathe. His jaw didn't hurt so much. Wait, did he even _have_ a jaw or tongue? He couldn't feel his feet--

_Harold was in college, leaving a White Power rally, disgusted with its inhabitants. Didn't they realize who the REAL enemy was? The Klan paid lip service to the mutant threat, but they'd never amount to anything with this kind of racial separatism attitude. How much hope did mankind have if you divided it into petty races?_

Harold was back at the institute. This moment of comprehension lasted long enough for him to fight through the disorientation of the flashbacks. He had the time to become utterly terrified. He was at the mercy of mutants. He couldn't so much as blink. Cyclops was staring at him again, and so was the girl, Rogue. Their lips moved, but he heard nothing.

_Harold was a teenager in training, running at the regional track meet. They called him a superman. It wasn't enough. He knew it wasn't enough. Not if the mutants took over. He'd be nothing. Everyone here would be nothing. The knowledge was at the forefront of his mind every day._

Harold was back at the institute. He couldn't feel the breeze on him, now. He couldn't feel the seat under him. He couldn't taste the air. He felt nothing at all. Only the stars were there. The mutants had left him alone...

Xavier pulled back as another flashback came forth from Harold's memory. This wasn't traumatic stress, nor mental illness; it was disruption on a massive scale. Neurons in portions of his brain were firing randomly, others shut down completely. The cascade of neural failure telegraphed its eventual end with brutal clarity. Soon Harold would be in a permanent state of physical detachment. He would be left without sight, hearing, taste, smell, even the most basic sensations of movement or touch. In the meantime the random firing of his memories showed no signs of slowing down. Harold was becoming a prisoner inside his own body, utterly removed, utterly alone, unable to stop the relentless onslaught of flashbacks.

A fate Xavier would only describe as Hellish.

"Can Mister Trask blink?" Xavier asked softly.

Pause. "I just brushed his eyelashes, and he didn't blink. We're looking at severe neurological damage, aren't we?"

"Yes. Close his eyelids, Scott. Otherwise his eyes may dry out and become damaged."

"My heart bleeds," Scott intoned robotically. "Maybe I should close his mouth too so he doesn't inhale any bugs."

Even though Xavier had pulled away from Trask's damaged mind, he clearly heard the man screaming.

_NO! I'M NOT DEAD, DAMN YOU! DON'T CLOSE MY EYES! I'M NOT DEAD! I'M NOT--!_

Trask's mental screams silenced under the weight of another triggered memory. This time, Xavier made a more concerted effort to block out the man's thoughts. Listening would only make him feel worse. This was a physical problem; there was nothing a telepath could do.

"Professor, not that I give a rat's ass, but what's this guy's problem?" Rogue asked. "He just opened his eyes and his mouth again. Is he froze like this or what?"

"Give me some duct tape; he won't be opening anything again," Scott grumbled.

"Is the man still breathing with regularity?" Xavier asked.

"Slow and regular," Scott said. "Don't tell me you want me to take his pulse, too?"

"The alternative of bringing him down to the medlab is somewhat less desirable."

"You're kiddin'! After what he did to Jamie? He don't deserve nothin' but a bullet!" Rogue said.

"To withhold life-saving medicine when someone is helpless is 'legally troubling', Marie," Xavier answered. "And it's highly likely the authorities will come here again, once the satellites pick up the image of a three story battlesuit in our backyard. We have to keep our hands as clean as possible."

"Well, at least he doesn't need life support," Scott said. "His pulse is regular too. Rogue, go and grab me a couple of cinch straps, a washcloth, and a blanket. We may have to keep him alive, but that doesn't mean he's getting a bed in the institute." He paused. "Hell, it might kill him to take him out of the suit. I guess we'll just have to leave him in there, cinch his eyes and jaw shut, and put the blanket over him."

Xavier had the feeling that moving Harold wouldn't injure him, but he said nothing. No one could legally fault Scott's reasoning, and the last thing Charles wanted was for Harold's presence to disturb the rest of the children. He'd be damned if he was going to put that madman's welfare over that of his own students. He looked back at his students, his eyes lingering on John and what was left of poor James.

God damn Harold. God damn the man. And Charles thought about what Harold Trask was going through, and decided that God had already done so.

:

"We just passed Iceland," Bobby said as he looked at the map display. "Think it's all right to give the Professor a call?"

Ororo nodded. "I'll hail him now."

She sent out the initiation signal with a casual touch. It took longer than she thought it should for the response to come back, and the responding voice made her stare at the instrument panel in disbelief.

"Hello?" Artie asked.

"Artie?" Ororo asked back. "What are you doing at the relay?"

"Ms. Munroe! Professor said for me to take it while he and Scott and Rogue and everybody took care of things!" Artie's words came out in a breathless, barely articulated rush of excitement. "You're not gonna believe what happened to us!"

Kurt swallowed nervously, his mouth suddenly very dry. "Please, God, tell me that the school didn't get attacked again?"

"It was just huge!" Artie went on. "The ones before were about ten or fifteen feet tall but this one was as big as the whole school! It just popped onto the school grounds, kind of like how Regis pops in and out? And then it went after Rosa, and Jubes got in the way, and it was like firing into the pool and everything--"

"Artie, is the Professor or Scott available right now?" Ororo said loudly over Artie's voice.

"I think I can get the Prof, he's in the medlab, gimme a minute."

"In medlab-- Artie is he hurt?" Ororo gave an irritated snarl as she realized she was talking into dead air. "I swear, I am _never_ leaving the school grounds again."

"Sonovabitch," Logan said from the back of the plane. It wasn't so much a curse as a surprised statement. "I just figured out who this guy smells like."

Kurt turned completely around in his seat. "The soldier?"

Logan had insisted on tending to Sergeant Martin in the back, for the obvious reason of figuring out what was so familiar about the man. Currently, Richard Martin was strapped in one of the seats, wrapped in a blanket, carefully sipping from a mug of hot instant soup. Logan stood nearby. He glanced back at Kurt and Ororo in the cockpit before turning his attention back to Martin.

"Rich, you got any relatives? Sisters, cousins?" he asked.

Richard answered without looking up. "Yeah. Got me a little sister."

Again, Logan glanced back at the cockpit. "Her name ain't Beth, is it?"

Richard then looked up, his grip tightening on the plastic white mug. "Beth? You know about Beth?"

Kurt unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat and moved back there as fast as his aching body allowed. Ororo leaned back in the seat and looked up. No, it couldn't be. This had to be a coincidence. It couldn't be the same Beth Hidoshi they'd met in West Virginia. Beth was a popular name. In fact, the poor man might be just latching onto whatever name Logan lead him with. That had to be it.

Logan must have been thinking the same thing. He asked, "Tell me her last name, just to be sure?"

Richard looked frantically between Logan and Kurt. "H-Hidoshi? Is she OK? God, she's still alive, ain't she?"

Logan looked to the back of the plane and muttered, "Jesus, the whole fuckin' world revolves around this woman."

Kurt knelt down and helped steady Richard's mug before he spilled it all over himself. "She's fine. We just didn't expect a coincidence like this, that's all."

"Storm, this is the Professor," Xavier's voice emanated from the speaker. "Is everyone well?"

"I was about to ask the same of you," Ororo replied. "What happened at the institute?"

"Something to make me think that we may be safe from further incursions of this sort for quite some time."

"Is everyone all right?"

Xavier paused. "No. I'm afraid not. There have been no deaths, but there have been injuries... some of them quite severe. I will have to contact James' parents once things settle down."

_Goddess, no. Not one of the children. __**Anything**__ but one of the children_. "How severe?"

"His condition warrants intensive care, but he has stabilized. As for your mission?"

Ororo glanced back at Isidro, then at their latest addition, Sergeant Martin. "A success. For legal reasons we had to leave Moira and Henry behind, but Isidro's here, along with another one of Nathaniel's prisoners. He has some sort of ties to Stryker, but we're not sure what. He's not in the best shape."

"More mutant experimentation," Xavier said softly.

"No, sir, not in this case. We found plenty of 'experimentation' victims, but Moira's going to take care of them. This is a human male, military, a Sergeant Richard Martin. He recognized Kurt as someone who managed to escape Stryker's labs, and he doesn't harbor any ill will to mutants, so we're not sure what happened there." Ororo caught sight of Sean pointing to the control panel and mouthing his daughter's name. "Professor, we have Banshee here with us: is Siryn all right?"

"She's fine. At worst she may have a short-lived case of laryngitis. Can I assume Sean will be joining us in the states for a visit?"

Sean relaxed and nodded.

"Let's just say we aren't going to drop him off anywhere along the way," Ororo said.

From the back of the jet, she heard a muffled squeak. She turned about again, wondering just who or what could have made that noise. Kurt, still crouching in front of Richard, was holding his nose and leaning forward.

"After all that stuff with the silver nitrate, it started bleeding again," Logan said, shaking his head with a slight smile. "You're in for a world of hurt."

"Everything will taste like burned silver for the next month," Kurt moaned.

_Next: Epilogue_


	15. Epilogue

Apologies to everyone who's been waiting for me to finish this thing. Life doesn't always intervene in the best way.

I'm not the kind of person who gets on soapboxes, but considering the forum, considering I just discovered this today, and considering the general lunacy of it all, I couldn't remain silent.

For those of us who like Nightcrawler, I have really CRAPPY news:

1) The Nightcrawler solo series will be cancelled after issue 12. This series sold better than ANY solo series except for Wolverine's, has fantastic art, and a compelling storyline that proves you don't need "fight filler" to keep things interesting. It's making Marvel money, yet mysteriously getting the axe. Which leads to number two...

2) After the House of M is completed, Nightcrawler is due to be "teamless". That's right: no team, and no solo. Guess what this means? From what I have been told, the people up top in Marvel don't personally like the character, so despite what writers, artists, fans, and even finances say, they're going to shelve poor Kurt for the foreseeable future.

This is a poor decision, and it isn't even made for compelling monetary concerns. He's selling well, the solo book had universal critical acclaim, and he has a strong fan base of WOMEN, a demographic that marvel keeps trying unsuccessfully to crack. Apparently, personal desires are getting in the way of good business, not to mention good fan base/employee relations. (For example, Alan Davis has quit Uncanny X-Men over this.)

If you like this character, now is the time to write in protest. has a petition and information on who to talk to, as well as information on the whole looming debacle.

Soapbox removed. Thank you for your patience.

----------------------------------------------------

**Sinister Designs: Epilogue**

As difficult as that night had been, the coming day wasn't much better.

The NSA came down literally fifteen minutes after Xavier spoke with Ororo. Not the FBI, not the BATF; the NSA itself, with forensic units, ambulances, vehicles designed for tank removal, and much more equipment and military personnel than Xavier felt comfortable hosting. The school was cordoned off, air traffic diverted, and what little calm the students enjoyed completely shattered. The Blackbird would have to sit tight somewhere until it was all over, sometime about mid-afternoon.

Then the parents started coming in.

The X-men returned to a flood of cars in the normally empty parking lot. Only half of the students actually had guardians of any kind, but it seemed that all of them had arrived at the school the second the government presence abated. It felt like the aftermath of Stryker's invasion all over again, with one crucial difference. This time, most everyone knew what their children were. This time, there would be no mass "disownings".

Team SOP was to debrief in the first few minutes after a mission, then let everyone go their separate ways. When there were walking wounded (which was more often than not), that debriefing took place in medlab. But now Xavier and Summers had a lot of "damage control" to do, and medlab was a very crowded place, full of students and parents. They would be hard-pressed to find room for Kurt to squeeze through and tend to his bloody nose, to say nothing of their latest "addition", Richard. Therefore, once the Blackbird landed, most of the X-men drifted apart to less-impacted parts of the mansion. Sean met up with his daughter, Piotr and Isidro split up in their search for someplace quiet, and Bobby waited for Rogue at the elevator. That left Logan, Ororo, Kurt, and Richard heading for medlab on their own, Kurt holding formerly white tissues to his face that now resembled a mass of red carnations.

Bringing Richard to the medlab was a definite risk, considering his instability and the tense, fragile atmosphere. But it was Charles himself who suggested it, so it stood to reason that Charles would be able to control the situation as well. Ororo kept telling herself this as they rode the elevator down. She couldn't afford to waste time and energy worrying about Richard when her students were in such bad shape.

Scott and Rogue met the four of them in the steel underground corridor, just outside the elevator. Neither had changed out of their uniform. Logan guided Richard out of the lift first, gently pushing him to Scott, who took over easily enough. Richard could move without help. He simply walked in a daze, without direction. Scott noted the nape of Richard's neck, and set his lips in a grim line as he saw that distinctive, circular welt. How many people had Stryker done this to?

Scott guided Richard to the side. "How's he been? Any more activity?"

Logan shook his head. "He's in shock." He edged further into the elevator as Ororo and Kurt left. "It's all just sinking in." He looked at Rogue and his nose twitched. "You okay, there, pun'kin?"

"Gettin' there," Rogue answered softly. "Ain'tcha comin' out yourself?"

Logan glanced down the corridor, in the direction of medlab. "Nah, too many people down here. I'm headin' back up for a while."

Rogue stepped in the elevator. "Y'all mind sharing the elevator on the way up?"

He gestured to the empty space beside him. She walked in silently and took her place by his side. She was rubbing her neck muscles with both hands as the doors closed.

The walk to the medlab featured dead silence. Inside was another matter. It wasn't so much the volume; conversations were quiet, hushed affairs, for the sake of both privacy and politeness. It was the tension, the emotions barely contained. Both of Kate's parents were there, while Judy and James only had their mothers present. Ororo's heart sank several levels. Jamie looked like he had literally been hit by a freight train. And, as expected, Jubilee had no parents to stand by her at all. She looked at Jamie, unconscious but stable, and flanked by Ms. Madrox and Professor Xavier. Then she looked at Jubilee, trying to _act_ unconscious in the middle of all this. Right then, Jubilee needed her more. She didn't need to signal her intent to Scott or Kurt; it was understood. She moved to Jubilee, Kurt climbed up and clung in an upper corner, and Scott patiently steered Richard to the other side to sit in a chair against the wall. Along the way, Ororo caught clips of whispered conversations.

"You should've seen it, dad," Kitten said, her voice hoarse with exhaustion. "Rogue made twenty of herself and kept that thing pinned like it was on spears."

Mrs. Pryde's voice wavered. "Considering what I'm seeing in here, I'd rather I never saw any part of this battle."

Mr. Pryde stroked his daughter's long, curly hair. "Kitty, I'm all for fighting the good fight... but I never though you'd start so soon..."

Ororo passed by Judy Colombrate and her mother.

"...I don't care what your father and I _thought_, you can't stay here!" Mrs. Colombrate hissed, tears streaming from her eyes. "This is the third time in one year. In one year, Judith!"

"Mom, please, don't take me away from here," Judy pleaded. "Don't. Let me stay here."

"For God's sake, you're in danger here!"

"But nobody spits at me here. No one pours soup in my locker or anything. The teachers don't glare at me. Please, mom, don't take me away..."

Ororo pulled up a rolling stool and sat by Jubilation Lee's bed. Jubilee opened one eye upon hearing the noise to her right.

"How're you doing, Jubilee?" Ororo asked softly.

"Okay," she answered. "Better'n Jamie. Just wish people'd stop waking me up every hour."

"That's to make sure you aren't slipping into a coma. You've had some pretty nasty 'blunt trauma' up there."

"Well, _duh!_ I got whacked by a tree!"

"How'd it happen?"

Jubilee shrugged. "Don't remember a lot. They probably told you everything by now."

"No, they didn't. With the NSA so close by, they didn't want to risk revealing our position with a communiqué, so we haven't heard much."

She looked directly at Ororo. "Are you serious? You don't know what happened here?"

"We know very little."

It wasn't quite true. They knew some of the situation; Xavier had briefed them in transit, before the NSA descended on the institute. But if a little white lie got Jubilee to talk, it would suffice. Sometimes that girl was more Loganish than Logan himself.

Kurt watched the entire room from his vantage point, unobtrusive and unnoticed. Well, mostly unnoticed. Kitty saw him up there and insisted on not just waving, but pointing him out to her parents. (Since Kurt needed at least three limbs to cling to the smooth metal walls, and one was occupied with his bleeding nose, he tentatively waved back with his tail.) The conversations were all murmured sounds, unintelligible in the echoing room, for which he was grateful. There was enough pain here; he didn't need to listen in on it as well. After a minute or so, Scott and the Professor switched places, with Scott standing by Ms. Maddox's side and Xavier moving to a spot by Richard Martin.

At that time, Kurt started to feel a bit dizzy and light-headed, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath. Perhaps being up in the corner wasn't the wisest of moves. He dropped silently to the floor, head bowed between his knees as he crouched in place. Over the next two seconds a migraine blossomed out of nowhere, he started to feel incredibly nauseous, the world tunneled in front of him, and then everything turned a dark purple. In a room full of grievously injured, he was about to faint from something as minor as a bloody nose. Wonderful. Well, at least, those verdammt silver sticks wouldn't hurt so much now...

He didn't _completely_ black out (purple out?). He was vaguely aware of his name being called, and someone hauling his arm over their shoulder. It was utterly unfair that the world shot back into focus with a nasty burning sensation in his sinuses. He shouted and jerked his head back, but found himself restrained.

"Whoa," Scott's voice said from the left. "Easy, there, big fella."

"I'm done, Kurt," Ororo said quickly. Her voice came from the right. "The stick is out. All done."

"What happened to smelling salts?" Kurt asked groggily as he opened his eyes.

"We had to do this anyway," she answered. "At least we were almost done before you awoke." She looked into his eyes then gave a rueful smile. "You've got a matched set now, Kurt."

Kurt looked around. The three of them were alone in the small side room, surrounded by diagnostic equipment. They had placed him on a small gurney.

"Matched set of what?" he asked as he slowly sat up.

Scott looked at Kurt's face. "Yeah, I see it. Another blood vessel burst, Kurt. By tomorrow, that right eye could be solid red like the left. It's pretty impressive."

Kurt smiled weakly. "Hours without trouble in the plane, and everything goes to hell when I get onto solid land. I hope the parents won't think too badly of me."

"You're a lot better at flying when your nose isn't gushing like an uncapped oil well. You'd better take it easy for the next day or so. How are you feeling?"

Strangely enough, except for the stinging in his nose, he felt far better than he had before he blacked out. He swung his legs over the side of the gurney. "Much better. I'm sorry about this. It happened so fast..."

"Well, there's no sign of skull fracture or swelling in the brain," Ororo said as she looked at a few displays of Kurt's head. "Do you think you can make it back to your room? Without teleporting?" Ororo added that last point in a bit of a rush.

Kurt stood. Traces of dizziness remained, but nothing to stop him. "If I am not stupid about it, then yes. This means I can sleep in my own bed, ja?"

"We're a little short of room down here," Scott admitted. "And make sure you get something to drink before you go to bed. I don't have to tell you how short you are on fluids."

Kurt nodded, trying to think of a beer cache that was close enough for him to get to right then. Maybe he could get Logan to go after it, seeing as he'd created the stashes in the first place...

_Beer is the last thing your body needs right now_, _Kurt_, Xavier's mental voice gently chided.

_Spoilsport_, Kurt fumed.

---------------------------------------

There was no debriefing that day. Nor that night. Exhaustion, mental and physical, didn't loosen its grip until the next morning. One by one, the group shuffled down to the teacher's lounge for breakfast, where Charles was waiting with coffee, bagels, and bagel-related accessories, and a quiet request for each person to stay for a morning meeting. Sean and Isidro showed, and stayed, as well. For once, Kurt was the last one down. True to prediction, both Kurt's eyes had "reds" instead of "whites".

"I know, I know," Kurt yawned as he received stares of astonishment. "I look like something out of a cheap horror movie. Not my fault."

"Good Lord, Kurt, how'd ye manage that?" Sean asked, staring at Kurt's red-on-gold eyes.

"At least they're symmetrical," Kurt muttered, pouring himself a huge cup.

"You can see all right?" Piotr asked, watching Kurt pour the hot coffee with great concern.

"Danke, Peter, I am fine. It's just the whites of my eyes, not my pupils." He looked to Professor Xavier. "Sir, have you heard anything from Herr McCoy?"

"No, but I have heard from Moira," Xavier said. "Henry will be calling us within the hour, I believe. That's one of the reasons for this meeting."

Kurt took his spot on the kitchen counter by the sink, and settled in as one would get comfortable at the table. Xavier maneuvered his chair to face everyone in the kitchen.

"Jonathan has been channel surfing most of the night, but has yet to see anything on what happened here, or in Britain," he began. "I doubt that either government wants this kind of information getting out to the general populace, so unless someone gives the Sun or the Mirror another big scoop, we'll be 'safe' for the time being. For those of you who don't know, we found Harold Trask himself in the huge man amplification vehicle that attacked the institute. In the ensuing battle, feedback from the suit caused Harold extensive brain damage; he currently seems to be in a level 5 coma. Since he was unquestionably one of the main minds behind this technology, I believe that we may not see too many more of these suits for a while. The chances are we've bought ourselves some breathing room."

"Anything happening with Friends of Humanity?" Logan asked.

"Nothing public," Scott answered. "And since Hank's contact in the FBI is still in ICU, I'm not going to try giving them any information for the time being. Someone in there tipped Larry and FOH off to Isidro and Hank's whereabouts. Until we know for sure, I'm doing a communication lockdown."

"Please, I... I don't want to interrupt..." Piotr glanced from face to face. "But has anyone found out anything more about Mr. Essex?"

"First of all, Piotr, rest assured that Nathaniel is not some long lost brother of yours," Xavier said. "There isn't the slightest match between the two of you. In that manner."

Piotr seemed quite relieved, until he heard the last sentence. " 'In that manner'? Is there another way we could be related?"

"This is something that took both Henry and Moira's efforts to untangle. Apparently -- and they're not sure how -- Nathaniel has discovered a way to 'graft' mutant abilities onto him. One of his successes... was yours."

Jaws dropped across the room, followed by startled denials. Piotr's face reddened.

"He 'steals' powers from other mutants? How could he do that to me? I have never seen him! Not once!"

"All he needed was some good DNA to work with," Xavier answered, a bit wearily. "Your hairbrush, some blood or skin samples from a legitimate doctor..."

"But he would need to know what I could do before he went looking! Not even the _government_ knew what I could do when I came here! Not America and surely not Russia! I was very careful to hide it! Otherwise they would never have let me go!"

"I don't know, Piotr. That's a mystery to me as well. In any case, he seemed to have grafted several abilities onto himself. According to Hank, he also seemed to have some of Fred Dukes' physical resistance to damage and a kinetic ability that his DNA code alone could not produce. And Nathaniel is apparently a mutant himself, albeit one on a low enough level that it would be difficult to pick up."

"Oh really? And what ability would he have?" Ororo asked coldly.

"Again, this is just a hypothesis, albeit a well-educated one. It appears that Nathaniel Essex's cellular regenerative level has remained at that of 35 to 40 year old man for over quite some time. It will take a detailed genealogical investigation to see how far this goes."

"Make your own Dracula joke here," Bobby mumbled.

Xavier's voice grew soft. "There is more here on this, I'm afraid. Nathaniel apparently had four mutant experimentation labs. A few hours after the battle, the British government launched a massive raid on all of his properties. They found one of his experimentation labs still occupied by more unfortunate test subjects. But after that one..." He paused to take a steadying breath. "There must have been some communication between the labs, because two of them exploded seconds after the first. One went up as it was being stormed."

Kurt's hands started to shake. He set his mug aside before he slopped coffee all over the floor. Bobby paled. Storm pressed her hands to her forehead, as if trying to quell a fierce headache. How many had died? How many more had that butcher killed by this?

"Two major explosions and the media doesn't see a damn thing, huh?" Logan muttered. "Nice censorship, there. Be interesting to see how long it lasts."

"The rest of his labs were just as they looked on the outside," Xavier finished. "It is highly doubtful the scientists there had any inkling of what went on at the other sites."

"Does Moira have room for them all? All the 'experiments'?" Sean asked.

"Will any be comin' over here?" Rogue added.

"Some may, but not until they're in better shape," Xavier said.

"How about our pal Richard?" Logan asked. "Guy's military or ex military. He's gotta have a record."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Martin." Charles steepled his hands in front of his face as he took a moment to collect his thoughts. "According to his public record, Sergeant Richard Martin is missing and presumed dead in a barracks fire."

"Everybody raise your hand if you're surprised," Rogue said with dull resignation.

"And now for what the public record doesn't say," Xavier went on. "Richard came to Stryker's notice because there was a mutant in his Ranger troop, and the troop as a whole refused to treat him any differently, let alone turn him out. So far as they were concerned, they went through basic together, served together, and nothing was going to split them up. You can imagine the row it created upstairs." He paused again. Whatever he had to say, it wasn't easy for him to do. "Stryker arranged for Richard to be transferred to him for a week or two. He must have just been perfecting his control serum at that point, and wanted a human subject, because that's what Richard went through. And to test the serum's effectiveness... Stryker had him kill his entire troop while they slept, then light the barracks on fire. Considering the fact that the weapon of choice was a silenced pistol, I have to assume Stryker hand-picked the arson investigative team as well."

Isidro stared at the table, doing his level best to keep things in check. Kurt gripped his upper arms so hard that the skin started to blanche under his fingertips, thanking God over and over for that one bullet that grazed his skin. That one bullet that stopped him in the Oval Office.

"But it seems there is one crucial difference between mutant and human physiology when it came to Jason's serum," Xavier went on. "For a mutant, it one application might last for a few days at a time, unless prematurely ended by a shock of pain. In Richard's case, one application lasted for months, despite outside stimuli. He received some shrapnel damage while under its influence, yet he remained under its control. In fact, the control wouldn't fade until over a month after Alkali Lake."

Isidro's eyes closed, and he looked as if the words struck him like a physical blow.

"Where has he _been_ all this time?" Bobby asked.

"He's not sure. The memory of what he was forced to do is all too vivid, but despite his apparent lucidity during combat, he's been in mental shock for several months. At some point Nathaniel captured him for the purpose of seeing if one exposed to the serum could be genetically reprogrammed to create it on their own, but fortunately his attempts proved futile."

"Contacted Dick's family yet?" Logan asked quietly.

"Not yet. I don't doubt that Beth's presence would be good for him. His memories are clear on their close relationship. But there are obvious logistical problems with bringing a dead man back to life, especially considering the mechanism of his disappearance, the fact he's technically still enlisted, and that we are the object of governmental scrutiny. Besides, this man has the worst case of post traumatic stress disorder on record, and I want to stabilize him a little more before bringing his family into it."

As he finished speaking, the phone rang. Hank, perhaps? Scott went to the wall and looked at the caller ID: Moira's lab. He picked up the receiver.

"Xavier Institute," he began. After a moment, he said, "Sure thing, Hank." He then punched the speaker button and stated, "You're in the kitchen, and it's an open mike."

"Good morning, everyone," came Hank's voice through the speaker. "I want to let you know that in case the bottom drops out of this whole science trend, I'm considering taking up life as a Barry White impersonator."

Even with the distortion from the amplifier, everyone could hear the differences between the Hank they knew and what he was now. Hank's voice had always been rather deep, but now it positively rumbled, like the growl of a great cat. There was also a slight lisp to it, from the inclusion of pronounced, simian fangs.

"Currently I'm working with Dr. McTaggert to stabilize our patients and attempt to undo their very undue damage," he went on. "But I must say that the locals are somewhat bemused by my presence."

"Are those the same locals that tried to burn Rhane at the stake?" Ororo asked cautiously.

"It can't be proven, but I fear so. It's difficult to tell behind the protest lines they've formed outside the facility. But on the brighter side, my fur appears to have excellent heat retention properties. I appear to be perfectly suited to Scottish weather. I wonder if Nathan was good enough to consider that?" He paused, then added, "Moira is less than happy with me when I come in from the rain. Something about smelling like a wet dog, I believe."

The jokes were the kind of things they tried to smile at, and it was better than the tension that would so surely result from any other approach. But, still, there was an edge to it that couldn't be denied, and they were all too drained to try.

"You're not in any danger, there, are you?" Scott asked.

"Currently we have discreet government support here, and by the end of next week it won't be necessary at all. She was in the process of moving to Muir Island before she left. To be honest, I doubt seriously that any of the protesters will take to water to get at us."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a second or two. It was up to Professor Xavier to break it. "After the move is complete, what are your intentions, Henry?"

They could hear Henry exhale slowly in a long sigh. "Truly, I've been so concerned with what's in front of me that I hadn't given much thought to days ahead... Moira has told me that her invitation still stands, that she'd welcome my addition to her crew. Of course, that means a work visa, and photographs, and all sorts of unwelcome government involvement."

All things that were easily enough accomplished, but his tone made it clear he wasn't wild about the idea.

"You sound like you'd rather return to the states," Sean observed.

"Yes, I would, Sean. But I'm not sure what I would be returning to. It's going to be difficult to return to my former position with Genentech." Pause again. "It's going to be difficult just walking around the streets."

"I know the problem," Kurt mumbled.

"You do know that you will always be welcome back at the Institute as well," Xavier said. "For starters, we have great need of a surgeon and a geneticist."

"Not a combat medic?" Hank asked back, a slightly bitter edge to his words.

"Membership in the Xmen is voluntary, Henry," Xavier said softly. "Without exception. It always has been. And right now, we surely have as much need of a healer and scientist as a combat operative."

"Among other things, there's a little girl here who could use some cleft surgery," Ororo added.

"So your pictures showed," Hank said. "It would be a simpler procedure if she had some control over her abilities. It will take some testing to determine the right approach for her."

Another pause. There were far too many uncomfortable pauses in this conversation.

"Professor Xavier, would you be kind enough to arrange the transfer of my personal effects?" Hank finally asked. "It would appear--..." His voice caught. He tried again. "It would appear... that I have nowhere else to go."

Finis


End file.
